Zak Moradi made his mark on the Irish nation once again, with his appearance on the Tommy Tiernan Show.

Fans of Off The Ball will be familiar with Moradi after his interview with Joe Molloy in January 2018, where the Iranian-born Moradi told us the incredible story of his life.

"I'd gone from the heat of 50 degrees, in a desert, surrounded by oil fields, then coming to Leitrim," Moradi told Tiernan on Saturday night.

He also told of the circuitous route that brought him from Ramadi, a city in central Iraq, to Leitrim.

Zak Moradi on Off The Ball

Moradi joined Joe for a chat when he was 25, telling the amazing story of his family, where his parents were in the middle of the Iran-Iraq war of 1980.

"There were about 20,000 other people [with my parents] when Iraq took over, and they were telling them all to move to Iraq," said Moradi or his Iranian-Kurdish parents.

"People were just grabbing their kids and getting out, leaving everything that they had behind - cars, tractors, anything they had, they lost everything.

"My parents got out and were living in Iraq, in a tent, for the first two years."

Zak told us how his family were not allowed far from where they ended up, in Ramadi.

"You are kind of stuck in one county, and there were checkpoints everywhere - you couldn't go anywhere because you had no IDs either.

"They had nothing with them when they went to Iraq; they had to start from zero - making up dates of birth, all of this."

What kind of life were they able to lead under these conditions?

"They said for about ten years - 1981 to about 1993 - were the worst. But it wasn't only them suffering, there were 30,000 there because they were Iranians.

"People were stuck there for so long; no jobs, no nothing. The UN were there, saying that they were going to go back to their homeland in two or three months. They were all farmers.

"The Gulf War happened in again, so they had to move from where they were in Ramadi to another part."

Zak was born in 1991, in the midst of 42 days of incessant attacks from the United States and allies.

Sport

How big was sport in his young tale?

"Like any kid, every kid loves playing. I have nephews now, if you give them a basketball, they'll play basketball, you give them a hurl, they'll hurl.

"I started off with Gaelic, I got playing and was fairly alright - and then hurling came when Clement Cunniffe came into school in Letirim."

We can only do so much justice to Zak Moradi and his story in written form - check out his full interview above.

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