Des Bishop speaks of heartbreak about his father's terminal illness

Irish American comedian Des Bishop spoke to the press this week about his struggle to face the reality that his father is terminally ill.

Bishop's father Michael,74, has terminal lung cancer and stopped undergoing chemotherapy earlier this week.

The comedian told the press that his father and his extended family have been coping with the diagnosis for the past 15 months.

During that time, to grapple with the unwelcome news, Bishop wrote a show with help from his father called "My Father Was Nearly James Bond." The critically acclaimed show addresses Bishop senior's cancer diagnosis and it is currently touring around Ireland.

"It is difficult," the funny man told the press this week. "My father came on stage with me for a few of the shows in Edinburgh and New York, but he is a lot weaker now and can't do so as much."

"I know that ultimately it will be very difficult, but until it happens, you don't really know how it will hit you. I am going to go back over to see him this month," Bishop said.

"The show is almost like a funny documentary, a funny story about a real life, and how illness affects the relationship between a father and a son, how it affects the dynamic in a family, loads of things. It's me trying to make sense of the most profound moment anybody has in their lifetime - one of their parents heading towards death," he added.

The New York born but Dublin-based comedian said he believed that lung cancer sufferers received far less sympathy from the public, regardless of whether they smoked, because it's common to attribute a certain degree of blame to those who developed it.