Graham Norton Family History

Graham William Walker, better known as the UK talk show host Graham Norton, was born on April 4th, 1963 to Billy and Rhoda Walker at Clondalkin in county Dublin.

He grew up in a Protestant family in the town of Bandon in county Cork, which he said made him feel somewhat isolated.

For Graham at that time, there was no obvious signpost to success.  So he set off to see some of the world, visitng San Francisco, Paris, and London.  In London he attended drama school.  He then spent eight years as an unemployed actor. These were long, difficult years working as a barman and a waiter.

Upon joining the actors’ union Equity, he had chosen Norton (his great-grandmother’s maiden name) as his new surname as there was already an actor called Graham Walker represented by the union.

Success at Last.  One evening in 1997 at the Edinburgh Festival, someone saw him and suddenly he was guesting on television. His own show, a chat show on Channel 4, rapidly followed.  After a switch to BBC in 2005, his chat show The Graham Norton Show has been a staple for the network from 2007 until today.

While London has been his home for most of his working life, Graham has felt more Irish as the years have gone by.  He can understand Irishness in a way he cannot Englishness, and this is reflected in the novels he has started writing.  They always have an Irish context, often in county Cork where he grew up.

Irish Roots

Graham’s roots are Irish, but Protestant in Ireland.  His paternal forefathers were originally English, tenant farmers on the Fitzwilliam Wentworth estate in south Yorkshire.

Walkers in Wicklow.  John Walker, born in Greasbrough in Yorkshire in 1691, crossed the Irish Sea with his wife and two children around 1713 to tenant farm for them in Carnew, county Wicklow.  And they remained tenant farmers for the Fitzwilliams for many generations.

Thomas Walker, born in 1773, lived through the bloody 1798 rebellion when the Society of United Irishmen rose up against English rule.  It was recorded that John Walker, a relative, was shot and piked by the rebels.  But Carnew, a Protestant stronghold, resisted the Catholic onslaught and in fact was the scene for the massacre of 41 Catholic prisoners held there.

The Walkers were a notable family in Protestant Carnew.  Thomas’s son Joseph was a warden at the All Saints Church, a position with civic responsibilities at the time.  And Joseph’s grandson George was the town sexton or grave-digger, also a position of responsibilty.

Later Walkers.  George’s son and Graham’s father Billy left Carnew for Dublin where he worked as a sales representative for Guinness.  In 1970 he moved his family to the mainly Protestant town of Bandon in county Cork.

His Maternal Line

Graham’s paternal line may have come from Wicklow.  But his maternal line, according to the BBC program Who Do You Think You Are, originated further north in county Antrim.

Logans in Antrim.  In Ahoghill, a village five miles outside of Ballymena, Margaret Logan – Graham’s two times great grandmother – was recorded as having at least four children and no father listed for any of them.  However, in one case the name Fred Dowey was scratched out of the records, suggesting that he was perhaps the father.

Margaret’s daughter Mary did get married in 1895, but she was, it turned out, eight months pregnant when she went down the aisle in Ballymena.  Her daughter Maggie was the first of her seven daughters before a son was born.

Margaret’s great granddaughter Rhoda moved to Belfast and married Billy Walker around 1958.

Graham Walker aka Graham Norton Family Tree

• Thomas Walker (b. 1773) from Wicklow m. White
• – Joseph Walker (1805-1857), churchwarden at Carnew

• Joseph Walker from Carnew m. Jane Condell (1813-1899) in Rathdrum, Wicklow in 1837
• – Joseph Walker (b. 1840) married in Dublin and emigrated to America
• – William Walker (1842-1911)
• – Jane Walker (1844-1919)

• William Walker, farmer in Carnew m. Catherine Byrne (b. 1857) in Carnew, Wicklow in 1885
• –  George Walker (1895-1970)

• Francis George Walker, sexton in Carnew m. Mary Levingston from Wexford (1894-1965) in Wexford in 1922.  They moved in later life to Dublin.
• – William (Billy) Walker (c.1925-2000)
• – May Walker

• William (Billy) Walker from Wicklow m. Rhoda Graham from Belfast (b. 1938) around 1958.  He moved to Dublin, later to Bandon in Cork
• – Paula Walker (b. 1959) m. Noel Giles, divorced
• – Graham Walker/Graham Norton (b. 1963), moved to London

• Graham Norton m. partner Jonathan McCleod in Cork in 2022