Tommy Tiernan has apologised to fellow RTE presenter Emer O'Neill after she called out one of his jokes from his stand-up routine.
O'Neill had gone to see Tiernan at Vicar Street when he told a joke making fun of African taxi drivers.
In response - which was forwarded to the Irish Mirror- Tiernan emailed O'Neill an apology, and explained to her that the joke had been dropped from his set:
Dear Emer, I’m so sorry about the hurt that a joke I told at Vicar Street on Friday night has caused you. It was never my intention for this to happen and I take full responsibility for it. It was dropped immediately from the set.
“I’m sorry that you came along hoping for a good night out and then got shocked and upset by something that I said. If you wish to speak with me about it, please send me your phone number. You were right to call it out as offensive and I will do my level best to make sure that something like this never happens again. Yours, Tommy Tiernan.
O'Neill responded, saying that "I emailed him saying thanks for your email and your words and that I welcome a call."
Emer O'Neill Calls Out Tommy Tiernan
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O'Neill had initially taken to Instagram to explain the incident and the joke in her own words.
“He starts the joke, and he starts talking about penguins looking like nuns with the rosary beads and I thought ‘nice one’ and I’m laughing.
“Then he talks about the wolves and their fierceness or their strength (reminding him of the Irish) - this is all paraphrasing because this just happened – and then he goes ‘then I went to the ‘African Savannah’ and my heart sank a little bit as soon as I heard the word ‘Africa’.
“I just thought ‘please don’t do this to me. I’m literally one of the only people of colour sitting here full of a room of white people’.
“And then came the savannah and taxi drivers. He acknowledged that the room was full of white people” and said that everyone is laughing so it mustn't be a racist joke."
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