‘I’m very insecure – I’m on a contract that could be terminated at the end of this broadcast,’ says Duffy
HE IS the voice of a nation but behind Joe Duffy’s very public persona lies a lack of self-confidence that has left him believing he does not deserve the job of hosting ‘Liveline’ and fearing it could all come to an end.
“I’d be very insecure, that’s the other thing. I’ve never had a sense that I was entitled to a job or entitled to stuff in life,” he said.
“It’s fear. You’re only as good as your last programme, and it’s personality-driven, and you have to build up a trust with people, and if that trust goes you’re a goner.”
Even though his weekday show on RTÉ Radio 1 has over 400,000 listeners, Duffy, who has hosted it for over 20 years, still worries about his future.
In an interview with new podcast ‘Human Nature’, the 64-year-old, who “never thinks about retiring”, said: “I’m on a contract which can be terminated by the end of this broadcast if they so decided, without any consequences.”
Asked if he thought his insecurity made him a better broadcaster, he said: “I think it does, actually. I think not just my insecurity, but I think insofar as I don’t over-think it, but I think I can relate to people more because I’ve been through a lot of things in my life.”
He said he “can’t stand broadcasters” who are “contriving an argument you know they don’t believe”.
“Obviously they believe something, but a lot of the things they come out with, especially at the start of their programme, is trying to get people going. You know they’re no more believing that than the man in the moon. No, everything I say, I believe,” he said.
In the interview he opens up about his childhood and the impact of his father Jimmy’s alcoholism, saying it instilled “fear” in him because he didn’t know what his father might do next.
He also speaks of his regret that someone he knows has fallen foul of an addiction to alcohol amid the Covid-19 lockdown.
“I’m fairly conscious now with the lockdown that some people I know who are recovering alcoholics have slipped, and you try to be as supportive to them as you can, you know,” he said.
“And the main person I know who’s slipped, he was such a giver and he will be again, that’s all he did in his life, his sober life, was look after other people, be it his elders or his grandchildren, and I never knew that he had such a drink problem until he slipped during the lockdown.”
He says his brother Aidan’s death in a car crash in 1991 at the age of 25 is “without doubt the single biggest wound in my life” and recalls vividly when he heard the news, while in RTÉ.
“I remember in the 1.30pm news bulletin hearing there’s been a tragic car accident in Maynooth and two people are dead. I said ‘Oh my God’.
“And then at 3pm as I came upstairs the chaplain at RTÉ was sitting at my desk and I was wondering why he was there, and a few of my friends were there and they said ‘We’ve bad news. Aidan’s been killed in a car crash’.
“The hardest thing I ever had to do in all my living life was go up to tell my mother that Aidan was dead. 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.
Thinking of his own mortality, Duffy says he pictures his wife June and children Ronan, Ellen and Sean at his funeral.
“All I can see at my funeral is, apart from my wife obviously, is the three children shouldering the coffin, and 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 family,” he said.
“My legacy is my children,” he added, admitting he regularly texts “to tell them I love them”.
‘Human Nature’ is a podcast by Rodney Edwards and is available on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, SoundCloud and impartialreporter.com.