Joe: ‘Our three children, born the same day, hate if they’re called triplets’
JOE Duffy has opened up about his insecurities, the greatest tragedy in his life... and his triplets carrying his coffin.
‘I’d be very insecure, I’ve never had a sense that I was entitled to a job or entitled to stuff in life,’ he told the Human Nature podcast, hosted by journalist Rodney Edwards, yesterday.
He believes that is due to his working-class background. ‘There was never an expectation that I would go to college or any of us would and I was the first of a thousand generations to go to third-level,’ he said.
He said that in broadcasting, ‘you’re only as good as your last programme’, adding: I’m in RTÉ on a contract, which can be terminated by the end of this broadcast if they so decided, without any consequences.’ But a quote from U2 drummer Larry Mullen keeps his perspective.
When voted best drummer in the world one year, Larry was asked what it was like and he replied: ‘I wake up most mornings thinking am I even the best drummer in U2.’
Joe also said his insecurities make him a better broadcaster.
‘I think I can relate to people more because I’ve been through a lot of things in my life, both from where I was born, my upbringing, my experiences leaving school then going back to third-level after three years, becoming a social worker, becoming a probation officer, the family I’m from.’
But the death of his brother, Aidan, in a traffic accident, was the most painful event of his life.
‘Without doubt the single biggest wound in my life is Aidan’s death. He was a good lad, he was a great worker, very bright, he was the youngest in our family,’ the broadcaster said.
‘The steering chassis collapsed and Aidan’s van careered under a truck, and the truck pushed Aidan’s van back, killing him instantly, by the way, and it pushed Aidan’s van back and under a coach that was coming behind him, that was full of Spanish students.
‘And one of the teachers was killed, so there was two people killed in that. But he was only 25, he’d just moved in with his girlfriend, he was doing well, a great worker again,’ Joe said.
‘And the hardest thing I ever had to do in all my living life was go up to tell my mother that Aidan was dead,’ he added.
‘That’s what I had to do. I still find it difficult to talk about it, to knock on the door and your mother opens and you have to tell her that her youngest son is dead,’ he said.
He also revealed that he and his wife June only discovered they were going to have triplets shortly before their three children were born.
‘We knew that they would need extra staff obviously, they’d need three teams. So they decided it was going to be 9 O’Clock on the Tuesday morning, and June was in the hospital for 12 weeks at that stage, which was just to make sure nothing happened.
‘Her major achievement was when three of ours were born, they were the longest gestation of triplets in Ireland up to that time,’ he revealed.
He said that the three children, Ronan, Ellen and Seán hate being called triplets. And when asked about how he would imagine his funeral, he said that all he can see at his funeral is his wife and the three children shouldering the coffin. ‘I’d like them to speak at the funeral. I’d like them to tell me a few things before I die, but that is my image. I see no-one else there apart from my family,’ he said.
On international affairs, he said: ‘I think Trump is monstrous, he is a monster. It’s just so distressing. How can you have someone who you cannot believe?
‘They’ve now counted 20,000 individual lies he’s told since he became president, and that doesn’t count the lies that he has repeated, like one he has repeated 147 times.’ ÷Human Nature is a podcast by Northern journalist and author Rodney Edwards and is available to listen to on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, SoundCloud and impartialreporter.com
Hardest thing was telling his mother
The children will shoulder his coffin