Ireland AM commemorated 25 years on the air on Friday, and what better way to celebrate then reminiscing on their most viral moments. Following his retirement from rugby in 2018, Monaghan man Tommy Bowe became one of the weekday co-hosts of the popular Virgin Media breakfast show. While Tommy may have been known for his rugby skills over the years, he is now best known to a whole generation of TV watchers for his infamous ten siblings moment.
The most talked about moment of Tommy’s tenure on the programme was when he made an ill-timed comment about author Seamus O’Reilly’s late mum. During the interview, Tommy gleefully exclaimed his shock that Seamus’s mum had 10 siblings, only to be left stone faced when informed she had passed away. Now, to celebrate nearly three decades on the air, Ireland AM bosses reunited Tommy and Seamus as they hilariously discussed the viral moment.
Asking Seamus how he felt in the moment following Tommy’s slip up, he recalled; ‘I noticed it, and I loved it in the moment. It was like, “Oh, that’s a funny little moment.” But I was doing other interviews and kind of wasn’t really thinking about that one too much.
’ ‘Then about two hours later, I seem to remember someone clipped it and said, “this is very funny.” The way that they’d clipped it, it was way funnier than I remembered, because I’m thinking about what I’m going to say, I’m not really kind of paying attention.’ Chiming in, Tommy discussed how his life ‘has never been the same,’ from that moment onwards.
‘It was about three o’clock that afternoon, and my phone went and I had a message with a load of laughing emojis from one of the rugby lads who I wouldn’t hear from too often. I kind of said; “Oh yeah, the cookery segment with Catherine Leyden was pretty funny today” and he said; “Have you looked at Twitter yet?”‘ ‘Your fantastic rugby career has completely been negated by the 10 siblings,’ Elaine Crowley joked, discussing the impact the clip had online. ‘Is that what our lovely Tommy has been reduced to?’ Seamus joked, before revealing whether or not he was initially offended by Tommy’s remark.
‘I did toy with the idea of saying that so that we could have another viral moment. But no, we thought it was absolute priceless. It was very, very funny.
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