Kildare-educated TV host was kicked out of Mullingar in 1960s

COUNTDOWN presenter Nick Hewer has revealed he was booted out of an Irish town for behaving like a 'hooligan' during the Fleadh Cheoil.

The businessman and TV personality, who became a household name on The Apprentice UK was educated privately at the exclusive Clongowes Wood College in Co. Kildare in the 1950s.

Hewer (72) and a friend attended the Fleadh Cheoil in Mullingar, Co. Westmeath, in 1963 when Hewer was 19.

But the duo ran into trouble during their 'wild weekend' when his friend set fire to a dodgem car.

'The first live music gig I went to was in '63. I remember to this day, it is seared on my heart,' he revealed on the Channel 4 game show.

'It was in a small Irish town called Mullingar and it was a Fleadh Cheoil which was a music festival. The whole town was sort of consumed by this music so there were fiddlers in every corner and bands - and every house was like a pub,' Hewer explained.

'What a wild weekend that was. 'I took a pal of mine. He set fire to the dodgem cars, I remember, and we were more or less driven out of town for, you know, being a hooligan.'