TV star Francis Brennan explains why he refuses to take selfies with fans

TV star Francis Brennan has revealed Ryan Tubridy told him he was driven "demented" with fans wanting selfies – as the former hotelier admits he turns down getting in them with fans.

And the At Your Service star makes no exceptions when it comes to selfies with fans and even celebrities who stop him on the street.

The popular Kerryman told the Irish Sunday Mirror: "I don’t do selfies ever. I only do a straight-on photograph taken by somebody else."

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Asked why he didn’t take selfies with fans, he said: "Originally, when selfies came out, I thought a selfie was Photoshop. I mixed it up. I thought people would be putting me in short trousers and a leprechaun hat and I don’t need that.

"So I don’t do selfies anymore."

And it’s not just fans on the street who get turned away from a selfie with Francis.

Francis added: "I remember I was talking to Ryan Tubridy and I said, ‘No I don’t do selfies’. He said, ‘I wish I thought about doing that all the years because I’m demented with them’.

"Oliver Callan the other day was going to take a selfie, and I said, ‘No Oliver, we’ll just do the regular one’."

Francis opened up about the one thing that "drives me out of my mind" when he meets fans on the street while he’s making his way to a meeting.

"The one that drives me out of my mind is a nice lady in her 60s or older coming along asking for the photograph. She’s rooting in the bag for the phone, which is down the very bottom of the bag.

"Now I have a meeting at 11am in the Merrion Hotel and we’re at the top of Grafton Street.

"She finds the phone, she takes it out but she really doesn’t know how to turn it on so I have to turn it on. Then I get the camera, and it says ‘camera full’.

"So she asks me to take a photograph and send it to her. This all takes 10 minutes and I’m running to a meeting that I’m now late for because I was nice to the lady on the street.

"Or if you’re eating in a restaurant and someone says, ‘I want a selfie’."

For 42 years Francis ran The Park Hotel in Kenmare, Co Kerry. After turning 70 last November, the hotelier and TV personality sold the property and retired from the hospitality industry.

While he is technically "retired", Francis has no plans to slow down or stop working. He said: "I was very lucky. When Covid came around we were closed and then when we reopened I said to John, ‘I’m going to pull back now nice and quietly and I won’t say too much because I’m going to retire’.

"I took time off and went on holiday in the summer, which I have never done before so I was easing myself into it.

"When it became final with the sale in November, there wasn’t such a big bang at all.

"My mother always says I’m able to compartmentalise. That was my time in The Park. I’m 42 years and I move along to the next thing, and I don’t look back."

He was speaking ahead of the return of series 14 of At Your Service on RTE One.

Francis and his brother John are on the hunt for more hospitality businesses to take part in the new series, which kicks off in January.

He added: "We’re looking for any business and they don’t have to be hotels. In the past we’ve done a holiday park in Dunmore East, we did a golf club in Wexford and a GAA club over in Shannon so they’re all different things."

John said: "We want to feature people who love what they do and have compelling plans to build their business.

"We’ve just finished the last series. Very strong figures, people are very happy about it, so we’re already signed up for next year."

To apply for the new series, email info@applyforatyourservice.com for your chance to take part in four new one hour programmes following a different business.

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