“He’s Amazing!” You’ll Never Guess Who Could Be Taking Over The Republic Of Telly!

Earlier this week, Dermot Whelan shocked us all when he announced that he will be leaving the hilarious Republic of Telly for pastures new. We’re upset but we also can’t help but wonder just who RTE will get in to replace him?

The Irish Daily Star reports that RTE has already said that the show will continue to go on and that Fred Cooke, one of the stars of the programme, has officially rule himself out when it comes to filling Dermot’s empty seat.

According to whispers, Jennifer Maguire is the hotly tipped replacement for the anchor. However, Fred has said that Bernard O’Shea is a natural for the role.

"Hang on there now... you want to put BERNARD in charge?!"

“He has an amazing energy, which is hard to retain in front of the cameras,” said Fred, speaking about Bernard.

“It would be a case of the Minister of Finance becoming Taoiseach. He’s a great comic and I think he’d do really well being the main host,” he added.

Fred said that whoever RTE decide to get in, they’ll have to “bring something of their own” to the show, just like Dermot did and Neil Delamere did before him.

Fred thinks Bernard would be the perfect replacement for Dermot

Last week Dermot confirmed that he was leaving the show.

“I’ve done 63 episodes and there are only a certain amount of ways to say Fair City is terrible. I had a ball and the Republic of Telly was amazing. We laughed a lot,” said the Limerick native.

“Jennifer, Bernard and I shall continue to be great palls. Bernard and I will be hitting the road in the autumn for some live stand-up, which could be another TV show in itself. I’m looking forward to getting back to stand-up and focusing on my radio work at 98FM,” he added.