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In a way, Neil Delamere is the farmer that never was. His father had a farm in Co Offaly that was sold before he was born.
“My sisters and brothers are older than me, so they remember it. My dad had gotten rid of it by the time I came along. There but for the grace of God I could have been a farmer,” he laughs heartily.
Being a comedian, naturally Neil is funny. But, really and truly, the Edenderry man is one of the most effortlessly hilarious people Irish Country Living has interviewed. He never forces humour, it just flows with the conversation.
As a comedian and a broadcaster, Neil pursued something of a different career to that of working off the land. But, if there ever is an apocalypse, it’s straight to his farming father he’ll turn.
So if there’s ever an apocalypse, I have no skill, I’m going straight to my dad, ‘Right, we’re now in The Walking Dead territory, I need you to resurrect some of those skills from the Midlands in the 1950s’
“My dad reared cattle and sold them to market. Made everything himself, you’re talking about the 1950s era. They killed the pig, they drained the pig and they made their own butter. It was so self-sufficient.
“I was saying to my dad one day, ‘Basically you’re like one of those lads in America in Oregon who’s gone a bit mad and lives off the grid’,” he jokes. “So if there’s ever an apocalypse, I have no skill, I’m going straight to my dad, ‘Right, we’re now in The Walking Dead territory, I need you to resurrect some of those skills from the Midlands in the 1950s’.”
Computers and comedy
Before Neil became a funnyman, a regular on panel shows and a presenter, he was a software engineer. He studied computer applications in Dublin City University (DCU) and worked in this sector for a few years after graduating.
But, at the same time Neil was also starting to do stand-up gigs, bigger and bigger ones. A comedy competition he won was the catalyst for him giving up his job to try comedy full time, and he hasn’t looked back since.
Neil’s career at present is a little more varied than that of a software engineer, more colourful that’s for sure. For example, he recently teamed up with Tourism Northern Ireland to promote visiting the North.
In this respect, he got to go on a two-day roadtrip across Northern Ireland. Between gigs in the North (several of which are taking place in the coming weeks) and recording BBC NI’s The Blame Game, Neil reckons he’s the comedian that crosses the Irish border most.
My mam still always goes, ‘Well I’m glad you got your degree’. I think, she thinks that I can fall back on it
Even with all this time spent in Northern Ireland, Neil admits he had never gotten to see a lot of the star attractions, but finally he has ticked them off the bucket list.
“No more than someone wouldn’t go to tourist attractions in Dublin because they lived there, I tended not to go and do all the touristy things in the North, because I thought, ‘Ah listen I’ll be up there again’.”
On his travels Neil made a video (which can be seen on www.discovernorthernireland.com). All of this bemuses his mother slightly.
“My mam still always goes, ‘Well I’m glad you got your degree’. I think, she thinks that I can fall back on it.
“There’s a video of the roadtrip we did around the North. I show my parents stuff like this and they are kind of looking at you going, ‘You got to go around doing this?’ Sometimes it doesn’t compute what you do now,” he chuckles.
History and hilarity
Neil is funny. We’ve established that. But he is also able to convey a more serious educational message. He has presented a number of history documentaries (IFTA-winning!) covering a range of topics from the Vikings to St Patrick.
One documentary that was particularly memorable was covering Red Hugh O’Donnell. As part of this Neil re-enacted Red Hugh’s escape from Dublin Castle, with terrifying and hilarious consequences.
“I mean that was one of the scariest things we did, doing Red Hugh O’Donnell’s escape from Dublin Castle. I abseiled down it, but I was dressed in 15th-century clothes. I basically looked like Romeo doing the walk of shame from someone’s bedroom window trying to get home.
“The guy who did it before me was kind of a military guy and he bounded down the side of the tower. You know on the Six One News in winter, inevitably there’ll be a story where they show a cow being winched out of a ditch? That’s essentially what I looked like being winched down the side of Dublin Castle. The cow always has that kind of bemused look on its face, that was me. Your man looked like Rambo.”
Hilarious, right? As well as his latest spate of gigs and broadcast work (new The Blame Game is being recorded soon), Neil hasn’t ruled out doing more documentaries. And hopefully he will; after all, the talent of effortlessly making things humorous shouldn’t be wasted.
For more on visiting Northern Ireland, click here. Neil Delamere brings his Controlled Substance tour to McNeill Theatre, Larne on 27 April and to the Millennium Forum, Derry on 4 May. See his website for more.
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