This afternoon.
Francist Street, Dublin 8.
A bagpiper leads the way as huge crowds wait as the coffin of comedian Brendan Grace arrives at the Church of St. Nicholas of Myra, Francis Street in The Liberties.
Earlier…
Brendan Grace fan are singing as they line the streets outside the church in Dublin’s Liberties for his funeral mass @rtenews pic.twitter.com/mIUWVOSsS9
— Samantha Libreri (@SamanthaLibreri) July 15, 2019
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Ah, isn’t that nice, loss-making RTE remembering Brendan Grace. Why then, in recent years, has it been TV3/Virgin which has commissioned and broadcast Brendan Grace performances, while RTE were serving up “comedies” like Bridget and Eamonn, Alison Spittle “Nowhere Fast” and series #2 of “Can’t Cope, Won’t Cope”? The shower of Montrose hypocrites deserted a well-loved talented comedian and entertainer, but like the worst gombeen politician, that won’t prevent RTE today breathlessly vaulting over the headstones to tell us how great he was.
Lets be honest here, his style of comedy was awful for this day an age. The vast majority of people I’ve asked all say “ah but was good in his day” in other words not good now.
It is a question of what’s in and out of fashion. He wasn’t an alternative comic. He was great at what he did and people who liked that stuck with him. And, to be fair, like it or not, there is a place in the market for his type of comedy – the success of Mrs Brown’s Boys demonstrates that.
Apart from the comedy, sounds like he was a nice, thoughtful man. May he rest in peace.
Yeah, seems to have been a lovely man. I was only commenting on his job, not him personally.
Still streets ahead of Allison Spittle, Jennifer Zamp….Karl Spain, Jason Byrne, Neil Delamare and Amy Huberman though.. All atrocious and all have been given a platform by the national broadcaster in the past 5-10 years.
I think Brendan Grace appealed to the same cohort as Daniel O’Donnell or the Late Late Show, with relatively innocuous light entertainment. His TV shows on TV3 would regularly get an audience of 150,000 compared with the 40-60,000 that an episode of Can’t Cope, Bridget & Eamonn or Nowhere Fast would get on RTE 2. The most watched programme in Ireland last week was the 22.15 broadcast last Thursday on RTE 1 about Brendan Grace which attracted an average of 330,000 viewers, double the best of the LLS. RTE deserted him as a talent and went chasing fairly awful comedy (in my opinion, and judging by the audiences, in the opinion of most). But last week, they were reclaiming him as their own and judging by the wall-to-wall coverage of the funeral, they’re doing their level best today to forget about how they overlooked him in recent years.
Shower of (loss-making) hypocrites.
Astonishing rant even by your standards Eoin
Your stuff about bras was better
Yes Brendan Grace was of his time but he could be genuinely funny.
I wouldn’t place him down in the same category as Brendan O’Carroll; a one-trick pony with a threadbare line in single-ententres.
I agree, he could be very funny and very entertaining.
An awful group of rubber neckers.
I was wondering why there was so many Gardai on bikes around Christchurch and Cork st this morning. God forbid that they might be out stopping dealing in the largest tourist footfall area in the country.
So the message seems to be , don’t die unless you’re woke.
He’s no Panty Bliss.
By all accounts he was a nice guy…comedy of it’s time, I laughed when i was a kid…people grow, comedians usually don’t and either carry on or bow out, it’s happened to billy connolly, he’s not funny anymore due to illness but more so because he’s not relevant anymore imo.
Disagree.
If Billy was well he’d still be a genius IMO
…I don’t know, at one time I liked Connolly, 20yrs ago now I’m waiting with bated breath for the next Frankie Boyle. It’s subjective of course…but I think Connolly had his day and carried on too long. No doubt Boyle will have his day…as for Irish comedians they always fade out in advertisement voice overs, bit parts, chat shows etc…Dave Allen was the last decent one we had and he was way ahead of this country.,and went to the uk.
Irrespective of whether you found him funny or not, everyone who came across him seems to have liked him. That’s an achievement in itself. RIP.