The Irish star of The Chase has revealed he had to report threatening messages from an online troll to the police.

Darragh Ennis, dubbed ‘The Menace’ on the hit ITV show, was bombarded with messages from an anonymous account around four years ago.

But the Dubliner said that while he largely ignores negative comments being made about him, these posts were so menacing that he had to report them to the UK Met Police.

He said: ‘The vast majority of people are genuinely very nice in person. In person, I can only think of maybe one or two incidents, and I have been doing this for seven years, where I have had someone who has been a bit nasty or a bit rude.

‘Online is different though. You get loads of trolls online,’ he added.

‘I’ve had people threatening me…a guy started threatening me on Instagram and he was trying to say that I needed to send him money or else he was going to attack me and stuff.

‘I reported it to Instagram and they said it wasn’t in breach of community rules. I appealed that and they still said it was fine so I don’t know what you have to do to be in breach of the rules.

‘I reported them to the police. The police took it quite seriously and they investigated it. But we couldn’t get him because how as working through VPNs and stuff,’ he clarified.

‘I ended up blocking him and he disappeared. If someone was calling me names, I’m fine with it. But he was genuinely making explicit threats.

‘It was a few years ago. That’s actually the only time that level has happened to me. It was about three or four years.

‘I don’t advertise where I live but a lot of people know where I live.. it wouldn’t be impossible to track me down.’

Darragh was speaking ahead of his new quiz tour this September, which will see him visit seven venues across Ireland, giving audiences the chance to put their knowledge to the test in an unforgettable evening packed with laughs, stories, audience interaction and plenty of brain-teasing questions.

Speaking about the tour, Darragh said: ‘I’m delighted to be bringing my live quiz back to Ireland. These shows are all about having fun, testing your knowledge, and sharing a great night out with friends and family.

‘I can’t wait to visit so many fantastic venues around the country and meet everyone this September.

‘There are eight rounds, with three breaks in the middle…and during those breaks people can ask me any questions they want.

‘It’s my favourite part of the show. The questions I keep getting asked how many shows do I film in a day, I didn’t realise you were as tall as you are, what’s Bradley Walsh really like, who is the best Chaser, what’s your worst subject, what’s your best subject, how did you end up getting the job?

‘It all runs through an app and I ask questions. It’s multiple choice and their answers get pinged up to a computer, which tots up the scores. That way we can do multiple choice and play games and stuff through the software.

‘It also means people can’t cheat, which is the bane of pub quizzes. Nobody can look anything up because the quicker you answer, the more points you get.

‘It is a great, fun night out,’ he added.

Tickets are available here.