A Fine Gael councillor in Fermoy has welcomed an apology by BBC presenter Graham Norton following negative comments about the Cork town on the host's popular chat show.
An audience member named Zoe in a recent edition of the programme said she had lived in Fermoy for 20 years, before describing it as a “horrible, horrible town.”
Norton made an apology to the people of Fermoy on Friday night's show.
“Last week, in the red chair, there was someone who was less than kind about the town of Fermoy,” Norton said.
“Well, suffice to say, the people of Fermoy were not happy – they were quite upset about it! So we'd like to apologise.”
Norton did note that he had defended the town to Zoe, pointing to the large pencil in Fermoy which is a signpost for the former Faber-Castell factory.
“However, on the upside, Fermoy did win the cleanest town in Ireland in 2007 and 2018 so I'd imagine it's still quite clean. Big up to Fermoy.”
Cllr McCarthy, who is chairperson of the local Tidy Towns Committee, said they “really” appreciated the apology.
“It was a great boost for us because, as you could imagine, the comments from Zoe the week before really upset us here in Fermoy,” he told RTÉ's Morning Ireland on Monday.
“We have a good, hard-working committee led by our project manager, Paul. And as you can imagine, the committee of volunteers certainly were disappointed.”
Cllr McCarthy said the committee had written to the Graham Norton show, but had not received a response before the apology was broadcast.
“We're hoping that the letter did get there in time. But if not, I'm sure social media and the papers and the researchers have picked it up all week. I think they might have got the message that we were disappointed. And he started off with the apology, saying somebody is not happy. And that's exactly what we were. We weren't happy with the comments.”
Cllr McCarthy said the town was now famous, and while “no publicity is bad publicity, at the same time, we want to put the record straight. But yes, we are serious and we encourage people to come to Fermoy. And the right message has been sent out with the apology. And Fermoy is a good place to live, to visit. And we're really very, very proud of our town.”
The Tidy Town Committee has issued an invitation to Norton to visit Fermoy the next time he is visiting his home in west Cork.
