Tommy Tiernan explained why he got a tattoo in tribute to his wife Yvonne “seconds” after meeting her.
The comedian shared that he had loved the work of James Joyce for a while before he met his wife, who is originally from County Dublin.
The tattoo he got is from the writer’s novel A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man, with the quote saying: “She was walking on before him, her hands holding her skirts up from the slush”.
Read more: Tommy Tiernan confirms two more episodes of hit series as fans say 'it's a Christmas miracle'
Read more: Inside Tommy Tiernan's personal life: Painful loss, marriage and children
Tommy chatted with Miriam O’Callaghan on her Sunday RTÉ Radio 1 programme.
He said: “I got that tattoo, I would say, 25 seconds after I met my wife, not literally.
“When I met her it was kind of like being on ecstasy or something. I never felt so upside down or loved and high.
“There's a great phrase in Irish [that means] under a spell and I definitely fell tremendously, catastrophically, dangerously in love.”
He explained that meeting Yvonne left an incredible mark on him, which resulted in him getting the tattoo.
“When I met Yvonne it was like a chakra, which never opened in me, opened, something that I wasn’t able to control,” Tommy said.
“I saw this [quote] written on hoarding outside the James Joyce Centre and I didn’t even have to think. I went into a tattoo parlour in Temple Bar and I asked him to put this on my arm.”
The couple tied the knot to The Raines singer back in 2009 at a star-studded event in Monaghan's Castle Leslie, with them marking their 15th anniversary this past August.
Yvonne opened up about her marriage to Tommy last year and shared the challenges of being in the public eye.
She said: “I’m always amazed because Tommy speaks very publicly regularly about his life, about everything in his life and he does in his stand-up too and I would never ask him not to but it's almost like…
“It’s such a part of my life that people are wanting information about Tommy, and I think that’s fine when it is him giving that information.
“He can choose to say whatever he wants or not about himself, but I get very protective about him and our family because it is a source for clickbait.”
“Now that doesn’t mean you can't ask me about him, and people do,” she added to Sile Seoige on the Ready To Be Real podcast.
English (US) ·