The owner of a cat who has gone viral on social media in recent days for responding with a Northern Irish accent says the video gives him and his wife a “good laugh”.
an Allen was speaking to BBC NI’s Good Morning Ulster program after his cat Leo went viral online again over the weekend for sharing his distinctive meow.
In the video, Mr Allen can be heard talking to his pet cat, asking if he was a ‘good boy’, to which the cat appears to respond with a very Northern Irish ‘aye’.
It’s not the first time the famous cat has gone viral online, with the clip previously posted by Mr Allen’s brother on Twitter several years ago.
However, even years later, Leo the Rescue Cat – whose original name was Ernie before it was changed – still leaves people in fits of giggles.
“It was really a stroke of luck he was sitting in the back door of our old house in Derry/Londonderry and I just asked him ‘was he a good boy’ and he said ‘yes’,” said Mr Allen at BBC Radio Ulster.
“I was like, ‘I’m going to have to film this’. I pulled out the camera and it was just to send it to my wife and he did, he replied a couple of times.
“I sent it to my wife and we had a good laugh about it. Then I talked to my brother, he asked me to send it to him. He’s on Twitter a lot. He posted it on Twitter and it went viral.
“It’s been out for a few years. It makes us laugh.”
Despite numerous remarks about his Derry accent, Mr Allen revealed that Leo was actually originally from Donegal.
“We had Leo on the back of a stray cat in our area at the time. We took the cat away but unfortunately the cat was run over by a car and killed. We thought why not so we went to see animals in need in Donegal and rescued Leo, his original name is Ernie.