Joe Rooney

Joe Rooney has been a headline act in venues all over Britain and Ireland for many years including The Stand ( Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle), The Empire (Belfast) and Laughter Lounge (Dublin) and has headlined clubs in China, Brussels, Dubai, Muscat and Bahrain. His energetic mixture of stand up and musical comedy and ability to engage with the audience has proved a hit with all ages and nationalities.

Recently he has performed his one man show in festivals in New York, Edinburgh, Milwaukee and Glastonbury and his podcast PodaRooney is gaining in reputation with interviews with Jason Byrne, PJ Gallagher and Ardal O’ Hanlon.

Joe is also a successful actor and writer having acted as Father Damo in Father Ted and Timmy in the long running RTE sitcom Killinaskully as well as a host of nationally released films like Wild Goose Lodge and South. He starred in the CBBC series Roy, was winner of Ireland’s Celebrity Come Dine With Me, got a five star review in the theatre version of The Shawshank Redemption along with Omid Djalili and recorded a single “The Rockier Road To Poland” with Shane MacGowan and The Aftermath.

Rooney is very funny, but it is with his guitar in his hands that he becomes unmissable…his impressions of seventies rockers singing nursery rhymes brings tears to the eyes The Stage

Rooney’s pastiches of The Dubliners songbook reveal a mischievous insight beyond the rebel- without-a-brain-cell of his on-screen counterpart. He is an engaging host and maintains the love-in mood of the show. Chortle 2013

“Occasionally laconic, at times infectiously manic, and always rivetting – coupled with his years of experience have made him one of Ireland’s “10 Most Wanted”, when promoters nationwide pick up their phones” The Hot Press

I’m still laughing at the thought of Fr. Damien (Damo) Lennon, the gurrier curate who lead Fr. Dougal astray. He was an inspired invention and was brilliantly played

John Boland, Sunday Independent

He’s a smooth operator with an innate confidence….. there are great lines – equating the dangers of the internet with more lo-tech fears from his childhood, or his routine mocking the encyclopaedically trivial knowledge of Gaelic football commentators, which he conclusively made his own. Chortle 2010

‘Prompted knowing laughter from the packed to capacity venue; many of them hoisting pints’ The Los Angeles Times