Chat show host Graham Norton is undoubtedly one of our proudest exports, interviewing the creme de la creme of Hollywood every week in what is the most popular chat show in the UK right now, with a pretty impressive US audience over on BBC America too.

It seems he wasn't always a fan of our fair island however, and used to feel like it was holding him back. It was only in the last five years he changed his mind when he saw how the community of Bandon rallied around after the death of his father.

Speaking at the Listowel Writers’ Week, Norton said; "Ireland is brilliant at death, but in a genuinely good way. When my father died it made me appreciate the community in Bandon in a way that I never had previously.

"It made me feel the things I thought were there to hold me back were actually there to support me.

"People stepped in to fill the gap and that was the beginning of me thinking that maybe I’d judged this country too harshly.

"I now spend two or three months every year in West Cork. I genuinely love the place."

Via The Independent