You might know "Jacinta O'Brien"; but who is the real June Rodgers?

Even after 25 years in the spotlight, June Rodgers admits she is still gripped by panic every night before she walks out on stage.

“Even though you say to yourself: ‘Cop on. You’re going to be fine, you do it every night of the week’, the nerves start kicking in,” she explains. “I just have this fear I’m going to go out and forget something.”

It’s perhaps a surprising confession from the comic who seems to display such confidence no matter what character she portrays – from the pig-tailed 12-year-old nemesis of Jacinta O’Brien to a parody of Kylie Minogue complete with gold hot pants.

But then, June never expected to pursue a professional career in comedy, never mind one that has spanned a quarter of a century – which she is marking this month with a nationwide tour, In The Merry Month Of June, culminating in a six-night stint at the Gaiety.

“Never,” she reiterates when asked if she ever expected such longevity. “Never. Never.”

June grew up and still lives in Tallaght – “or as some people call it: ‘The foot of the Dublin mountains’,” she says, assuming a snooty voice – which in her childhood was a country village. Indeed, her father’s family were pig farmers and summers were spent with her aunt on a dairy farm in Brittas.

She paints a picture of a humble, but happy childhood. Some of her favourite memories are of Sunday drives, herself and her sister Linda squabbling in the back seat, while her parents, Alex and Kay, sang to each other up the front. (One of their favourites was This Is My Lovely Day, which June later had performed at her own wedding.)

It certainly was not a stage-school childhood – even if she was in the same class as Bono at one point – and at the age of 18, June went to London, where she worked for four years as a chambermaid and then a housekeeper at the Tara Hotel in London.

Feeling homesick, however, she returned to live with her parents, who had just relocated to Brittas, but was devastated when her mother died suddenly of a heart attack just six months later.

“Mam was only 57,” she says. “It was the biggest shock of our lives and the first time anything like that had ever hit me.”

As well as dealing with such loss in her early 20s, June admits that she became very protective of her father and would lie awake at night listening to make sure he was still breathing.

“I kept thinking: ‘I’m going to lose him now’,” she recalls.

“That went with me for a long time.”

After the death of her mother, June says both she and her father struggled to settle in Brittas, so when a 100-year-old cottage came on the market in Tallaght, they decided to relocate.

Sadly, tragedy was to strike once again.

“We got the cottage just ready to move in,” recalls June. “And five years after mam died, he died of a massive heart attack as well at the age of 63.”

The double blow floored her. June recalls a neighbour calling to the house one evening with a “sausage, a rasher and an egg”.

“She said: ‘I knew you wouldn’t cook for yourself’,” she recalls. “And I remember sitting in the house just crying my eyes out, because you’re left in this place that you don’t really call home because you only have it ready ... and there’s nobody there to share it with.”

It’s a loss that she still feels keenly, and as she turns 56 herself this year, she is more aware than ever of how much her parents missed out on.

“I’m nearly the same age as my mam was when she passed away,” she says, “and I have an awful lot of living that I want to do.”

At that time, June was working in Fujitsu Ireland and was involved in The John Player Tops, though she had no ambitions of a career in showbusiness.

“I was in the back row straight away,” she laughs. “I was swaying for six months.”

However, through the Tops she met Tom Roche and Martin Higgins and realising that she was a natural messer, the Jacinta O’Brien sketch was born. June went on to bring the act to a talent show at Clontarf Castle, where she finished second. It just so happened that Gay Byrne was in the audience that night.

“I remember on Tuesday the girl in reception at work said: ‘June can you come to reception? The Late Late Show are on’. And I was going: ‘Yeah right!’” she recalls. “But they said: ‘We’d like you to come on Friday’. I’ll never forget it. Before I went on, I actually thought I was getting a panic attack. I actually thought: ‘I can’t go out there. I can’t’.”

The exposure on primetime television lead to offers to do support for acts like Brendan Shine and Linda Martin at Clontarf, but it was actually an appearance on Kenny Live that proved her real breakthrough.

“After that performance people started ringing to say: ‘Can we go to see The June Rodgers’ Show?’” says June.

“So then Clontarf asked me would I top the bill.”

Which meant leaving her job and a leap of faith.

“Because I’d a full mortgage, I was a bit reluctant,” June admits. “I wanted to do it, but I was terrified. But I decided: ‘Do you know what? If I don’t take a chance now ...’ and I took it.”

She hasn’t looked back. Her annual Christmas show at the Red Cow is an institution, she’s a regular on Liveline’s Funny Friday panel and most recently starred in the Mrs Brown’s Boys movie, but she describes her new tour as an all-singing all-dancing variety show, with a full cast and a host of characters and sketches covering everything from water charges to Zumba.

“It’s all around the waist, round the waist, that’s trouble,” she sings to the tune of All About The Bass.

Off-stage, June enjoys life out of the spotlight. She met her husband, Peter, at Clontarf Castle when he caught a banana she threw into the audience during a sketch as a Moore St trader, and they have been married for 18 years.

She describes him as a gentleman who keeps her grounded. She regrets they never had children of their own, though she is very close to her nieces Karen, Gillian and Megan.

“I was 38 when I got married and I actually thought I was too old,” she says. “Peter would have been a fantastic father, he really would have. I suppose I was lucky enough to have the three girls – I was like their second mother – but Peter never had that.

“So I think he misses that and I regret it now in a lot of ways because I think it would be lovely to have somebody of your own, do you know that kind of way? But I thought I was over the hill.”

That said, June appreciates how life has worked out. She loves nothing more than pottering around her country cottage garden or walking her dogs, Poppy and Beauty.

“I’m very content with where I am,” she says. “You don’t know from year to year what’s going to happen, so you just enjoy it as it is.”

Jitters and all.

In The Merry Month Of June tour dates:

For further information, visit www.junerodgers.net