Award winning actor and comedian Steve Coogan is a Kilkenny Cat

Award winning, comedian and actor, Steve Coogan, who has received a nomination for best actor from BAFTA for his role as Stan Laurel in the film, Laurel and Hardy, is a Kilkenny man.
His great grandfather was Thomas Coogan who came from the Hebron area of the city.
Incredibly the woman who is responsible for heading up the genealogical service at the Kilkenny Archaeological Society, Mary Flood, is a cousin of the 53 year-old funny man who enjoys a hugely successful career.
He has been in such hits as Night at The Museum, Philomena and won a number of awards for playing inept television personality, Alan Partridge.
Thomas Coogan was from a family of tailors in the city. He emigrated to England from Kilkenny with his Cork born wife in the late 189os and settled in Manchester.
Steve Coogan has often talked about the importance of his Irish roots and about attending Catholic schools.
Pierce Coogan, Steve’s grandfather was born in Manchester and left school well-educated, able to play musical instruments and a qualified electrician.
The Irish connection was strengthened when Steve’s father married his mother, a Mayo woman.
Steve Coogan’s grandparents, Pierce and Florence, had the Astoria Irish dance hall and then the Assembly Rooms in Manchester, a Mecca for Irish people at the time.
Pierce brought Joseph Locke over and then the show bands so there was an established line of entertaining in the Coogan family.
Pierce held many charity dances to raise money for orphanages and the convents which looked after the aged and unwanted – the list was endless.
Even with their seven children, Tony and Kathleen fostered children too. Steve Coogan recalled that his father was a computer engineer for IBM and that his mother was a stay-at-home mother who raised the family.
“They did short term fostering, but on top of those children, there would be abused kids, or kids who would be made wards of court,” he recalled.
“They often fostered a brother and sister to keep them together,” Mr Coogan told the West Cork Times newspaper in an interview back in 2014 .