Authenticity was Weeshie’s calling card

IN the age of the stage-managed event, of the PR handler, of the slick, say-nothing politician or sports person, there’s a real desire out there for the real, for the genuine article, for authenticity.

One man who exuded authenticity was Weeshie Fogarty and it made him a household name, not just in Kerry but across the country. People flocked to him because of it. The Weeshie you heard on radio was the real Weeshie and that came across loud and clear across the airwaves.

His little mistakes – and mistakes is probably too strong a word, his eccentricities is probably a more appropriate way of phrasing it – endeared him to people. There was no artifice to Weeshie’s radio personality, there was simply Weeshie.

Weeshie’s undoubted brilliance as a broadcaster was precisely because he wasn’t formally trained, it was precisely because he was simply being himself. Without knowing him on an intimate, personal level, it’s fair to say that in a lot of ways he was an open book.

His passions were there for all to see. He loved his town, he loved his county, he loved his people and they loved him in equal measure. Weeshie became a part of the fabric of life in the Kingdom and beyond its borders he became synonymous with the place.

The esteem in which he was rightly held has been evident in the outpouring of emotion that accompanied his passing this week. Most appropriately it’s been much more so a celebration of the man than a lamentation for his passing.

To most of us Weeshie was joy and laughter. He had a real a lust for life and lived it to the full. An example to us all, his likes will never be seen again.