Kielty: Day in school I was told my dad had been killed in Troubles

Death fuels comic's ambition

- NICOLA METHVEN

PATRICK Kielty thought he was being summoned to his headteacher's office for a telling off when he was told his father had been murdered in the Troubles.

The TV star's father Jack, who worked as a building contractor, was shot by members of the loyalist Ulster Freedom Fighters in 1988 aged 44 after refusing to pay protection money.

Patrick recalls in a new BBC documentary series, Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland: "I remember going to school and like lots of other kids who were 16, putting up your posters for Comic Relief.

"And being called to the headmaster's office and thinking 'I didn't ask permission to put these posters up, here we go.