Since Father Ted, there’s been this perception that if you’re funny and you’re Irish ― you go to England. But you’ve decided to stay here. Was this always your intention?

When I was younger I probably thought more about getting the hell out of “Daddy’s Town,” but as you get older you get kinda comfortable and you realise you could forge a life for yourself here. It’s kinda nice. Being a medium-sized fish in a tiny pond, as opposed to being a minnow in an ocean.

What’s your background in? How do you end up going into comedy?

I wanted to do animation. So I studied animation in college and then just could not deal with the sheer amount of work that goes into it. Then, when the recession hit, I thought, this is the perfect time to be unemployed. There would be no judgement whatsoever, so I quit my job. I was working in the International bar. Even subconsciously, I suppose I was veering towards comedy without even realising it. I chose to work in a bar where comedy started in Dublin. So yeah, recession hit, I quit and then started comedy more as a hobby than anything else and then it just sort of luckily turned into a job.

You probably have a bit of stability that a lot of comedians and actors don’t have, with your slot on the Republic of Telly, but where does your future lie?

I would have plans beyond it. Like, the big dream is to get into film. That’s something I’ve always been interested in. But I’d be happy enough with a reasonably good sitcom. If I could pen a good six-episode series, that is the ultimate dream. But Republic of Telly is great because it means you can get more gigs first of all and you’re constantly gigging. There is a stability there.

Yeah, because you lend your name to a lot of projects. You’re a stand up, you write and perform in sketches, you’ve co-written a play called The Devil’s Céilí with Philip Doherty…

You try lots of things and see what you’re good at, I suppose. The play was interesting. Actually, I think it was the most fun I ever had on anything. It didn’t have the monotony of working on a film. A film is fucking boring when you’re making it. Whereas, with a play, there’s a huge amount of pressure. The audience is right there. Everything has to happen in an hour. And if something goes wrong, you can’t just stop and start again. So there’s a huge amount of pressure but it’s way more rewarding. But I’ve never been focussed. And I tend to say yes to a lot of things. And it’s usually worked out. I think saying yes to stuff, it ends up helping you rather than hindering you. You rarely regret a project unless it’s fucking terrible.

There’s one particular sketch you wrote and performed with Tara Flynn called Armagayddon, which was put out in the run up to the same-sex marriage referendum.

Tara was asked to do it because she has built up a relationship in the “comedy activists” circles. So she was approached about doing it and she asked me would I help her and she was amazing. I just threw out ideas at her and she formed it into a script. We had a lot of fun coming up with stuff and shooting it was a dream.

Was it unusual for you to take a more political stance with your comedy?

Not really. I don’t do too much political stuff, but socio-political stuff I find easy. I could not parody politics at all because I do not understand it. But social politics I’ve always had an interest in and I found it easy to make fun of them. In the lead up to the same-sex marriage referendum, there were so many ridiculous characters who were coming out of the woodwork who just gave you so much fodder. I still follow David Quinn because he entertains me on a daily basis. God love them, they didn’t have great spokespeople, the No side. David Quinn looks like a child shitting in every photograph. Breda O’Brien looks like a babysitter coming out of court after a child-murder case. And Jon Walters looks like a hunchback who would open a door to a scary castle in an old Hammer horror film. You cannot hitch your wagon to those stars.

How do you feel about Ireland’s future?

I feel like we’re the musicians on the Titanic. The ship is going down and you’re not getting on those lifeboats. So just take out your trombone. Play the Pink Panther theme. That’s all you can really do. Every year I feel like there’s gonna be a revolution coming but it doesn’t arrive. I think we will reach a tipping point. They’ll bring a tax for something really, really stupid. They’ll bring in a tax for Moros. And people will just go “No, that is the fucking last straw” and wreck the Dáil.

And Irish television?

In interviews, the first thing you’re asked is “When was the last time you were in Ireland? Why don’t you visit us more often?” We tend to think way too much about what other countries think of us. It shatters the image that they have of us, these fun-loving, lackadaisical, nudge-and-a-wink tricksters, because it just seems incredibly insecure. I think we need to not care what other people think of us because they don’t give a fuck. At all. We are the smallest child on the playground but that’s fine. It’s weird because Americans have this image of us and in general we live up to that, but when it comes to TV it just feels like we’re desperately seeking approval. When you watch British TV shows, they don’t ask “What do you think of the UK?” They don’t seek approval. I think we need to care less about identity.