With his autobiography now on shelves, Andy Lee this week sat down for an interview with the Star's Kieran Cunningham to continue, to use a phrase, "to tell it as it is".
As part of the book's publicity tour, Lee appeared on The Late Late Show two weeks ago, where he stole the hearts of most of the nation.
Platformed on the same show was Peter Casey, who appeared having finished a distant second in the Presidential election the week before. Casey's campaign was marked with an attack on the Travelling community, refusing to recognise their status as an ethnic minority by saying that they are "basically people camping in other people’s land”. Having refused to release details of his own tax affairs earlier in the campaign, Casey also accused the Travelling community of "not paying their fair share of taxes in society".
Given that the Travelling community forms part of Lee's heritage, his appearance on the same show as Casey was a striking juxtaposition. Not that Casey was fully aware of it, however. As Lee tells Cunningham, Casey didn't know who he was.
I heard afterwards that he was in the Green Room and came over to Conor Nagle from Gill [publishers], going 'Are you Andy Lee?' Then he went to David McWilliams, 'Are you Andy Lee?'
The full interview is available in today's Star.
