The legendary broadcaster passed away last November
Brendan O’Carroll has recalled the last time he spoke to Gay Byrne before he died.
The legendary broadcaster passed away on November 4, 2019 at the age of 85 – following a battle with cancer.
Speaking to the Irish Mirror, the 65-year-old said: “Gay was a great mentor even though I only met him twice in my life outside the Late Late Show studio.”
“He called me on Facetime two weeks before he died to see how I was getting on with my heart complaint and to mind myself.”
“Imagine he was dying and all he was concerned about was me, but that was the type of man he was, a legend.
“I have a lot to thank him for, he was the man who advised me to take breaks and to rest and that is why at 65 years of age I only work 26 weeks of the year,” he said.
Earlier this year, Brendan also mourned the death of his beloved sister Fiona.
He said: “I just got to see Fiona, who lived in Canada a few days before the first lockdown there. She was like my surrogate mother, I was the youngest of a family of 11 and she reared me. We were joined at the hip. It was so hard she passed away.”
The Mrs Brown’s Boys creator also opened up about living in the U.S. during the coronavirus pandemic.
Brendan explained: “I had a stent put in my heart over a year ago and was terrified I would pick up the virus.”
“We live on a golf course here in America and honestly if you didn’t watch the news, you’d never know there was a pandemic and over 300,000 people have died.”
“People would look at us like lunatics as we’d run in and out of shops with our masks on and only touch things we were buying.”
“The Americans hadn’t a clue what was going on and lived life like normal. Even at the golf club they’d be having a party between the ninth and tenth holes and we would just stay away,” he said.
“The last thing I needed with my condition was to get the virus. We had to keep ourselves right.”
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