Tommy Tiernan reveals he wants his ashes scattered over Galway Bay when he dies

The Meath-raised comedian has made Galway his adopted home for the past 30 years since he first moved there in his early 20s.

Since then he has had two marriages and three children from each relationship.

“I love the West and I’m living in Galway now well over 30 years,” confirms Tommy (53).

“I want my ashes spread on Galway Bay. I have six children and one granddaughter, and they’re all born and bred Galwegians, and the city will claim them. I’m a blow-in.”

Tommy made his remarks in a new two-part series on the west of Ireland he’s presenting on RTÉ One, Tommy Tiernan’s Epic West.

failure

“When I finished school, I didn’t get in college anywhere, I went West,” he adds. “That was 1988. The great thing about the West for me it tolerates failure, it’s accepted. That just gave us freedom.”

In episode one, he travels to Skellig Michael before moving on to Sligo and then Connemara to meet poet Kevin Barry, members of The Saw Doctors and Druid theatre legend Garry Hynes.

Other artists he meets on his trips include Limerick hip hop star Blindboy Boatclub and Altan singer Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh.

In the second episode viewers will see Tommy visiting the abandoned St Brigid’s psychiatric hospital in Ballinasloe Co. Galway.

“There was always a great threat in Connemara and in parts of north Galway that if you weren’t behaving yourself ... that you’d be sent east — and they didn’t mean to Dublin — it meant the psychiatric hospital in Ballinasloe.”

Tommy Tiernan’s Epic West airs on Wednesday, 9.35pm, RTÉ One.