Lifetime Achievement Award for Comedy

Brendan O’Carroll

“To receive such an accolade in my home town is sensational. I am proud to accept this award, especially when I see the list of those whom have already been so awarded.. including Jim Sheridan, whose work I so admire and who has done so much for young Irish actors, writers and indeed the whole industry. To be considered in that league is the premiership. Thank you IFTA”

Brendan O'Carroll, Recipient of the IFTA Achievement for Comedy

Brendan was born the youngest of eleven children in Finglas, Dublin in 1955 to Maureen, a Labour TD, and Gerard, a carpenter. His family endured extreme poverty and he saw no option but to leave school at the age of 12 to start work (however, it was later discovered that Brendan has an IQ of 156 and he became a member of Mensa). The young O’Carroll had a string of occupations, including a waiter and milkman but it was comedy that eventually captured his attention.

Fascinated by Irish comedian Hal Roach, Brendan fastidiously studied his comedy stand-up routines and shortly thereafter got a job working for comic Brendan Grace as his personal assistant.

Displaying the characteristic tenacity and self-belief that would later make him a success, O’Carroll spent some time honing his craft in smaller gigs before he moved on to bigger shows – a veritable turning point in Brendan’s comedy career coming with his first appearance on Gay Byrne’s The Late Late Show in 1992. His comic appearance on the talk-show was received positively from the studio audience and viewers alike. Shortly after, his first video Live at the Tivoli went straight to Number One, beating out competition from the likes of U2 and Garth Brooks.

In the early nineties, O’Carroll invented his most successful character to date as Agnes Browne made her first appearance in the radio show Mrs Browne’s Boys, written by and starring Brendan, and the show was soon receiving high ratings on 2FM. This success led to the creation of Agnes Browne as the central character in Brendan’s first novel The Mammy. The book topped the bestseller charts in Ireland for months and was eventually made into the film Agnes Brown in 1999, directed by and starring Oscar winner Angelica Huston.

In 1994, the same year he wrote The Mammy, Brendan was voted Ireland’s No 1 Variety Entertainer at the National Entertainment Awards. Memorable film appearances around this time include Roddy Doyle’s The Van (1996), Stephen Bradley’s Sweety Barrett (1998) and Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes (1999). He also had a small role in his own novel adaptation Agnes Brown and he wrote and directed Sparrow’s Trap (1998), an adaptation of his novel of the same name.

In 1996, Brendan again displayed his innate versatility and talent as a performer when he began presenting on television for the first time with his Saturday night RTÉ quiz show Hot Milk and Pepper, which ran until 1998.

In the 2000’s, O’Carroll’s various theatre productions featuring Agnes Brown were starting to garner attention from television producers in the UK and, in 2011; his plays were adapted into a BBC television sitcom.

Initially broadcast in a quiet late evening slot, Mrs Brown's Boys became a huge word-of-mouth hit, and quickly moved to primetime. Created by and starring O’Carroll in the lead role, Mrs Brown’s Boys also features his wife Jennifer Gibney, his sister Eilish, his son Danny and his daughter Fiona, and the show’s first series eventually pulled in an average audience of 3.6 million people in 2011.