Just one week ago I interviewed Dermot Morgan at the launch of his third and sadly final series of Father Ted.

It was to be his last ever interview and a talk I will never forget.

I was presented to Dermot in a packed Irish bar in London’s Mayfair. He was tucked away in a corner guzzling champagne.

Twenty minutes elapsed before Dermot looked up for air and finally granted me an audience.

When we were introduced he ordered another top up of bubbly and announced in his lilting Irish accent: “I’d better not have another glass of this or I’ll lose count.”

Within minutes of us chatting I realised I wasn’t getting much sense out of the star.

With reddened cheeks and slightly glazed eyes he kept looking over his shoulder telling me that he was waiting for his “old lady” to arrive.

He seemed anxious that he wasn’t caught in the middle of swigging his champagne by girlfriend Fiona.

His answers to my questions were often confusing and he’d suddenly shoot off at a tangent changing the subject in mid-sentence.

His conversation was peppered with rude jokes and impressions. One minute he was an Irish Catholic priest reprimanding me for joining him in a glass of bubbly, the next he’d quote part of a stand-up routine taken directly from his stage act.

There’s no doubt about it Dermot Morgan was a witty, charming man who’d reached the top of his career and was clearly enjoying his success.

He made no pretence that he loved a drink. When I dared to hint he might have indulged in a bit too much of his favourite tipple he narrowed his eyes and stormed: “What’s it got to do with you?”

One subject he loved and did make much sense about was that of his girlfriend of 10 years Fiona. He quite clearly adored her and their three-year-old son Ben.

Archaic Irish laws had meant he could not divorce his first wife Suzanne, the mother of his two sons Don, 17, and Bobby 16.

But ironically a change in the law later this year meant he would have finally have been able to wed Fiona.

Despite his fame, Dermot always vowed: “I’ll never forget my roots.”