The Rooney bin
Killinaskully star Joe Rooney has repaired to Drogheda’s suburbs to gorge himself on Alfred Hitchcock masterpieces. That’s the life.
Colm O Hare, 11 Jul 2008
He has become widely known in recent years for playing the part of Timmy Higgins in the hit RTÉ comedy series Killinaskully, which, astonishingly has been running for five years now. But Joe Rooney will probably be always best remembered for his role as the gurrier curate, Father Damo, who led Dougal astray in that memorable episode of Father Ted, (‘The Old Grey Whistle Theft’). However, he started his career long before that milestone, as one half of The Quacksquad comedy duo that went on to write and perform on Shay Healy’s Nighthawks as well as appearances on The Late Late Show (where he performed his own interpretation of Riverdance).
A Meath native, Rooney currently resides on the outskirts of Drogheda, where he has lived for the past year and a half. “It’s actually in County Meath, which is a disadvantage when it comes to the postman, sorry the post-person,” he says “I’m originally from Duleek and my two kids live nearby and stay with me quite a bit. I’m renting at the moment, it’s in one of those new developments of apartments and houses that are springing up all around this part of the world.”
Having just finished filming another series of the hugely successful Killinaskully, he says he’s looking forward to a change of pace and planning to mix more live work with TV. (He appears in the Carlsberg Comedy Carnival in Dublin later this month and also has a date slotted in at the Electric Picnic).
“I think I’ll be doing a bit of both,” he says. “I’ve also written a TV pilot with Paul Woodful. But this looks like being the last series of Killinaskully, which I think is good in a way. Five years is probably enough and I want to get up off me arse and do something else. I never thought it would go on that long to be honest.”
As well as appearing in the show he became more involved in the writing end of things: “That was a great experience, I hadn’t done much writing before and it was interesting watching stuff I’d written.”
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