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Comedian David O’Doherty is best known for his award-winning stand-up shows. Here, the 50-year-old talks about his formative relationships with women, including meeting his celebrity crush in unusual circumstances, and how his current partner helps keep him grounded.
My maternal grandmother, Lully, was a fascinating woman who owned lots of sausage dogs. She was the dachshund woman of Dublin! Her husband died a few days after I was born and she moved part-time to an island off the west coast of Ireland where she opened a craft shop and worked closely with local artists and makers. It was a huge financial drain, but something she wanted to do.
My mum, Ann, kept the show on the road when my father, Jim, was on tour as a jazz musician. Mum is Protestant and my father is Catholic. My parents weren’t allowed to get married in Dublin in 1967, so they married elsewhere.
My mother is Irish in every way, but has this slight outsider status too. There were kids who weren’t allowed to play with my brother and sister in the 70s – that they might come to our house and burst into flames or something! But she has amazing aptitude for seeing what is important in life – her three kids.
My childhood fell during a period of incredible change in Ireland. When I had my first Holy Communion at the age of six, my mother wasn’t allowed in the church – she had to stand outside. The attitude from Dad’s family was raised eyebrows and muffled laughter at how utterly silly
this was.
Mum was an international tennis and hockey player in the 1960s. Any aptitude I have for sport comes from her, as well as a huge sense of empathy. She also encouraged me when I wanted to do stand-up comedy.
I had a crush on singer Lisa Stansfield as a kid. Later, when I was 18, I was at a friend’s house party in Dublin and we were making too much noise. There was a knock at the door. It was Lisa Stansfield standing there, telling us to keep it down.
My sister, Jane, is a social worker and eight years older than me. She dropped out of school and always wanted to help others. She is great in a crisis.
Jane was into new wave music, listening to Stiff Little Fingers and the Undertones. She got a New Romantic hairdo that was shaved up the sides and at the back and openly smoked and drank in front of my parents. There was no outrage left for me to farm by the time my teenage years came along. Jane moved to London at 17 and worked in West Indian children’s homes. She also dated a guy in a cool band.
My first girlfriend, Sarah, was American. We met at university and are born on the same day. We dated for three years and it was quite tempestuous. Later, when I was 24, I met her in New York with her husband. It was a profound moment. Until that point, I’d come at relationships believing, “Oh, I’ll just change my personality and we can figure it out.” The penny dropped when I saw how good they were together and realised you do have to be good for one another.
I dated Irish singer Lisa Hannigan for a year. She was well known and had big radio hits. My comedy was starting to do well in 2010, but we didn’t publicise we were dating. It put a lot of pressure on the relationship when the news did come out. My main memory is the week we broke up; one of her songs, called What’ll I Do, which was about how great I was, went to No.1 in Italy.
In 2020, in my mid-40s, I moved into my grandmother’s craft shop with my parents. It was fascinating because I came to appreciate the relationship I had with my mother again.
My partner, Helen, and I have been together for four years – I do a podcast where I refer to her as the “Helen-copter”. She works as a human rights lawyer and provides a well-needed perspective to the life I lead as a stand-up comedian. We would love to have kids one day, and marriage is something we’ll get around to at some point.
David O’Doherty’s Highway to the David Zone is touring Australia throughout April.
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