RTE star Eilish O'Carroll has revealed that her body went into "shock" when her mum brought home her little brother, Mrs Brown's Boys creator, Brendan.
Eilish recalled the moment she met her sibling at the age of three and a half and admitted she wasn't told about the family's new arrival.
Eilish O'carroll recalled meeting her baby brother on ElaineCredit: Virgin Media One
Speaking on Elaine on Virgin Media One, the actress says she remembers the day Brendan came home very vividly, despite being one of nine children.
She said: "I don't remember much in my life but I do remember the day he was brought home from hospital because nobody told me that I was going to have a baby brother.
"Nobody said, 'there's a baby coming home'. I remember sitting on the side of the road, I even remember what I was doing.
"I had a lollipop stick and I was rolling a lollipop stick in a bit of muck to make a lollipop.
"My sister grabbed me and I thought it was for a hiding because I was eating dirt. She said, 'We have something to show you'.
"In I go. The room is full of adults and over on two chairs is a carrycot. My carrycot.
"I have my dolls in that carrycot. And my mother goes, 'go and have a look and see what we got you'.
"So I'm thinking, 'it's a new doll'. My body went into shock. Because the first thing I thought of was 'that's in my carry cot'."
Eilish as Winnie McGoogan with her brother Brendan as Agnes Brown on Mrs Brown's Boys
MAMMY'S BOY
Despite their relationship getting off to a rocky start Eilish insisted that they were very close growing up and admits that Brendan was their mother's favourite.
She saids: "As a kid I loved him. We got on really well and he was a very very funny kid.
"Obviously there was a lot of competition within the family anyway for my mother's attention and my mother absolutely adored him.
"So if there was ever an example of 'I really don't want this child' changing this was it. Because he was her life.
"And that's hard to take for all of us growing up because we're thinking, 'we're all here mam'."
HITTING BACK AT CRITICS
Mrs Brown's Boys has been celebrating their success after the hit RTE sitcom scooped best comedy at the National Television Awards.
However the show has faced criticism over the years, particularly from Irish viewers.
Eilish revealed that she believes any hate is an "Irish thing".
She said: "It's the same for most success stories here. I think it's an Irish-ism. I always say to myself that we are the land of saints, sinners and begrudgers.
"And I think when you see people getting on, they're going, 'would you look, she's full of herself' or 'don't you get notions above your station'.
"We have all heard it and I think it's very sad because an awful lot of Irish people and Brendan being one of them, has had to go abroad to get the recognition he actually deserves.
"I think it's kind of an Irish thing and I think we need to change it.
"I think we need to take a little bit of the Americanism, 'right on sister, you go for it. You are fantastic'. We don't do that to each other.
"We need to clap each other on the back."
'NO IDEA'
Eilish also opened up about coming to terms with her sexuality.
The 67-year-old revealed she had "absolutely no idea" she was a lesbian until she fell in love with a woman at the age of forty.
She said: "I got to forty, I had absolutely no idea. I had no issue with my sexuality I am, and I hate using this word but this is where my mind was at the time.
"I'm living a normal life. I'm planning my future now with my second husband, lovely lovely man, and we're actually going to come back to Ireland and we're going to retire in Ireland. We had it all sorted.
"And I met a woman and I just fell in love with this woman. That is as simple as that. I wasn't expecting it.
"It came out of left field. I couldn't rationalise it. I punished myself. I was my worst critic.
"My religion - and I wasn't religious, I wasn't a practising catholic for years - that guilt came up and bit my bum.
"I went, 'now this is really the one you're going to die in the fires of hell for. You are perverse'."
HELPING HAND
Eilish admitted that it took her a long time to accept her sexuality but her former husband actually helped her through it.
She said: "It took me ten years to admit it. It took me ten years to come to terms with it. The only person I could actually confide in, believe it or not, was my husband.
"And he was absolutely brilliant. It was incredible. He really helped me on my journey which meant obviously that the marriage was going to end.
"I came back to Ireland and I met Marian in 2002, I think, and the rest as they say is history.
"He adopted my two boys and he was an amazing father - still is - and we keep in touch when it comes to the boys.
"We get together at Christmas time. It's just lovely, a really happy ending. I was very very lucky.
"It's an amazing place and I'm proud to be Irish and I'm very proud to be living in Ireland today.
"However, I have to say that there are still communities and there are still families who have real trouble coming to terms with their son or daughter, husband or wife, or mother or father who have this issue."
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