The actor Tom Cruise almost had his arm broken by an irate drinker in an Irish pub who accused him of trying to steal the barman’s cigarettes, a Kerry politician has revealed.

Michael Healy-Rae, an Irish independent politician who has been a Dáil member for the Kerry constituency since 2016, spoke about the incident on The Pat Kenny Show on Tuesday.

Healy-Rae’s family have long been associated with the pub. The landlord for many years was Jackie Healy-Rae, the father of Michael and his brother Danny, who is also a politician.

Cruise was in the county in 1991 while shooting the Ron Howard drama Far and Away with his wife, Nicole Kidman. The pair entered the pub one afternoon, Healy-Rae reported, wearing jeans and sunglasses and going unrecognised.

“There was a man sitting down the end of the counter called Ger the Manny,” he said. “He was an elderly man and he had his stick up on the counter and he was sipping away at a little glass of Guinness.”

The bartender working that day, who was called Matt, served the young couple two glasses of Diet Coke with ice, before heading into a backroom on an errand.

Healy-Rae continued: “When he was gone, the Yank leaned behind the counter and he had his hand dipped inside the counter.

“Ger jumped up off his stool, he caught his stick and drew a belt at yer man’s hand trying to hit him across the hand.

“But he just missed and there was a big bang down on the counter right near the Yank’s hand.”

On hearing the commotion, Matt returned to the bar, where Cruise reportedly said: “My goodness, I was just leaning in to get a bit more ice.” But Ger the Manny disputed Cruise’s claims of innocence, shouting: “You bastard, you were trying to steal Matt’s fags.”

Healy-Rae said that Cruise stuck to his guns: “The Yank looked at them and said, ‘I was not, I was trying to steal nothing.’ They sipped away at their Diet Coke and left.”

He added: “If Ger had been an inch or two longer he could have broke [his] arm.”

Far and Away was one of Cruise and Kidman’s three onscreen collaborations: they met on the set of Days of Thunder in 1990, and also worked on Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999), before separating in 2001.

Cruise has long been teetotal. In his senior year at high school he was dropped from the football varsity team after it was found he had drunk beer before a game.

The Guardian has contacted Cruise’s representatives for comment.