Eleanor Tiernan talks to Donna Patrice about leaving the civil service, comparisons with her cousin, comedian Tommy Tiernan and how Galway feels like coming home as an artist.

It was during a particularly disparaging Christmas involving a new job as a civil servant, a very costly timing belt replacement for her car, and the removal of all of her wisdom teeth that urged Eleanor Tiernan to sit back and assess the direction in which her life was heading. As a post-Christmas boost, her father treated her to some acting lessons in the Gaiety school of Acting. It was a short series of lessons but it was enough to leave Eleanor wanting more.

After completing her acting course at the Gaiety, Eleanor decided to get involved with some amateur dramatic groups in Dublin. At first she admits she was only interested in theatre and stage, “I wasn’t thinking about stand up. I started researching drama schools in the UK and Ireland and as part of the audition process you had to do improvisation so I decided to get some lessons on improvisation in Dublin. A lot of people who do stand up comedy also do improvisation so that’s actually where the whole stand up thing started for me.” It wasn’t all plain sailing and she admits to a slightly shaky start. “At the beginning I was so nervous.Nobody thought I would ever be able to do it. It was awful; I had my notes in my hand and my hand was shaking. I think people thought they were probably looking at some kind of therapy session.” However, Tiernan persisted and has quickly managed to rack up an impressive CV with performances at the Kilkenny Cat Laughs Comedy Festival, the Galway Comedy Festival, the Best of Irish at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the BudLight Comedy Revue. She was also a semi-finalist in the Paramount Comedy’s ‘So You Think You’re Funny?’ Within just a year of starting stand-up, Eleanor was asked to perform in Dublin’s Vicar Street for the RTE production ‘The Liffey Laughs’, and BBC’s ‘One Night Stand’. More recently, Eleanor completed 120 shows as the support act for Tommy Tiernan’s Bovinity Tour, playing to over 120,000 people.

Despite her rapid rise to success, it appears that Eleanor is slightly uneasy about her title of comedienne and often feels under pressure to be funny all the time, “I feel like I’m a disappointment to people off stage. It’s hard; there’s a certain type of wit in Ireland that I’m not good at. I’m sure some people think, ‘God that can’t be that comedienne!’ They expect me to have an answer and to be on all the time. Even when I’m on stage I’m not that witty to be honest. I’m good at writing jokes and saying bold things, but I’m not the kind of comedienne that wise cracks with the audience and makes a big routine out of some guy’s shirt on his glasses.” Comparison with other comedians is natural but she confesses to feeling like she had to live up to her hugely successful cousin, Tommy Tiernan when she first started out.

“Initially I felt under pressure to live up to Tommy and I measured myself against him He has been really successful; he has milestones and has won a lot of awards. At the beginning I thought, ‘Oh God, I have to do all those things, or else I might as well not do it,’ but the longer I go on in this, the more I see that everybody has their own career path, just as in life. You just have to go with what comes your way and make the best of it”

She sounds like she’s come a long way from the nervous girl with the shaky hands and knees at her first gig, but nevertheless she confides about feeling self-conscious and apprehensive about what audiences will think of her; “ I do wonder what people are going to think of me when I let my guard down. I mean ,it’s ok to sit at home and write your jokes but you’ll only succeed to a point with your gig. You have to be willing to show yourself and move outside of that. It takes something different every time you do it and that’s something I find quite daunting about stand-up.”

Politics, popular culture and the recession seem to take precedence on the comedy circuit at the moment but Eleanor takes her inspiration from issues closer to home. “Social interaction, any kind of tension, going abroad and particularly Irish people going abroad, all tend to inspire me and find their way into my material. I have three great girlfriends and we were having dinner the other night and one of them suggested we go to Barcelona to see some art galleries. I was delighted but there was also a little voice in my head saying, “I’m going to get loads of material if I go away with those girls.” I do have to be a bit careful though; people can be a bit sensitive so I try not to hurt anyone’s feelings. People do silly things and aren’t aware of it; it might be a bit of a shock to see your story up on stage and a whole room full of people laughing at it. You might think, ‘Everyone thinks I’m an eejit,’ but it’s not really meant like that and it shouldn’t be taken like that.”

It is often the case that comedians feel the need to tailor their material to suit certain audiences and I’m curious to see if Eleanor agrees; “Well, I don’t need to censor myself or think too much when I’m playing to a Galway audience. With some towns, I immediately have to think carefully; if you say the wrong thing ,the audience can be a bit defensive. Galway people are robust in their sense of humour and they don’t take life too seriously. There’s an element of freedom that there isn’t always in other towns. You definitely don’t have to be as guarded. Comedians, artists, musicians, actors; they all love Galway. I love Galway. People in Galway have ownership of the arts; it’s a way of life down here. In other places it can be elitist or intellectual but it’s part of the Galway identity and it’s a part of people’s lives. Street performance, trad music in Quay Street, the colour, art and paintings are a fact of Galway. It’s like coming home as an artist.”

Eleanor plays the Galway Comedy Festival October 21 -25 www.galwaycomedyfestival.com