GAY BYRNE THE LOVABLE ROGUE
A WARM TRIBUTE BY HIS FRIEND, SAM SMYTH
LOOKING back, I realise that the longer I knew Gay Byrne, the more I liked him – and wish that I was as good at my job as he was at his. On the other hand, maybe Hollywood star Alex Baldwin had Gay Byrne’s misfortune with investments in mind when he joked: ‘I called my daughter Ireland because she is beautiful but bad with finances.’
Meanwhile, in the backbiting world of the media, Gay Byrne was frequently criticised for behaving like a supercilious school teacher correcting listeners’ grammar and other broadcasters’ mispronunciations.
His curmudgeonly revisions recruited listeners to his Sunday afternoon radio programme on RTÉ’s Lyric FM to a cult. On one occasion, a couple wrote to him saying they enjoyed the programme and that they listened to him after dinner every Sunday. ‘I think you will find that is lunch’ was Gay’s response.
I met Gay the following week and told him how much I enjoyed his Lyric FM show. His reproving response: ‘Is listening to me on a Sunday afternoon the best you can do? Sam, you should get a life.’
Although Gay Byrne occasionally summoned his inner Victor Meldrew, he usually presented a sunny façade to the world, handing out ‘hellos’ like free samples in a supermarket. Yet he could dismiss persistent drunks and nuisances with a perfectly enunciated ‘F**k off’. Some found him arrogant, a glib know-all with irritating mannerisms – too pleased with himself to harbour any self-doubt. I found that his most vehement critics also held very strong views – usually religious and/or political – and envied his popularity and articulacy.
In 1993, I co-authored (with Michael Nugent) ‘Dear John’ a bestselling book of pithy prank letters to famous people. Our imaginary couple (John and Dympna Mackay) wrote to Gay Byrne at The Late Late Show: ‘As the nine o’clock news is running, we get undressed upstairs after pulling the curtains, locking the doors and turning up the central heating . . . curl up before the fire, naked, just as the first men and women must have done in caves. As we watch (The Late Late Show), we clip the savings coupons off food packaging…’ We included a £5 postal order with the letter and, by return post, received a signed photograph of Gay Byrne. He received sacks of strange mail every week and our silly letter was probably no more odd than many of the missives sent to him.
I have lived in or near Sandymount in Dublin for some 40 years and Gay Byrne moved there from Howth after he retired from The Late Late Show. I often met him in the village when he was walking, frequently disguised by a muffler over his face, a hat and dark glasses.
After such a rigidly ordered and busy life for more than six decades he was coming to terms with semiretirement.
One morning we met in Sandymount Hardware, a Mecca for fanatical south Dublin DIY activists. I also know that Gay and myself leave home repairs to others although in an emergency we might phone for help. We were as ill at ease in the hardware store as we would have been bumping into each other in a Victoria’s Secret outlet. I told a mutual friend about my surprise face-to-face with Gay in the DIY store.
My friend rang the following Sunday afternoon to say that Gay had mentioned on Lyric FM that he had met me in Sandymount Hardware. Gay could present our mundane encounter near the linseed oil as somehow significant.
Careful with money – parsimonious would probably have been his description – he regularly cadged cigarettes at events and was always grateful for a Jameson whiskey but never rushed to return the favour.
Yet he always included the most junior members of his production teams to slap-up ‘thank you’ meals in top restaurants (and he, not RTÉ, paid the bill).
Gaybo was the progeny of this State’s frugal post-independence years. The son of a mother fiercely ambitious for her children with a father who worked long shifts in a pensionable job in Guinness brewery. Born into an era when the threat of destitution was ever-present, job security stuck to him for the rest of his life.
HE was already 15 years old in 1949 when this poverty-stricken and newly independent State declared itself a proud Republic. And he matured into the ideal member of any jury: keenly intelligent and imbued with common sense and basic decency.
If anyone deserves to be praised as a ‘self-made man’ it is Gay Byrne.
No one I have met is more disciplined or determined. When he decided to become a broadcaster, he went to an elocution teacher and he developed breathing techniques and perfect diction and the resulting mellifluous voice matched the best classical actors. His one-man theatre show was a masterclass.
He left little to chance and rehearsed and practised everything. He was the first I heard quote Benjamin Franklin: ‘By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.’ Studying the best broadcasters in the UK and US gave him confidence but his insatiable curiosity gave him a head-start over his rivals.
Gay was a good listener and his interest in events was as genuine as his fascination with people. He was incorrigibly nosy. And like the best journalists and broadcasters he was more interested in what others said than his own contribution.
In the neighbouring kingdom, Terry Wogan, another Irishman, was nearly as famous and admired in Britain as Gay Byrne was in Ireland. But by dealing with crucial political and pubic questions Gaybo was much more influential in Ireland than Wogan was in the UK. And that political edge made many politicians here suspicious of him: most politicians were resentful and jeal
ous of his popularity and influence.
For many years, RTÉ took him for granted and paid him as little as they could get away with – there were few perks and no frills. For years the most famous figure in Irish public life was grudgingly given only short-term contracts. Gay Byrne’s programmes on radio and television were RTÉ’s most lucrative for advertising revenue.
After he finished his morning radio show on a Friday, he napped for a couple of hours in a sleeping bag on a couch in a dressing room before producing and presenting the Late Late Show later that evening. It was only when he was considering a lucrative offer from the US that RTE began paying him respect – and a fee commensurate with his ability to attract viewers and advertisers.
In 1986, his accountant and advisor Russell Murphy embezzled at least €250,000 of his money, then 22 years later Gaybo lost his second pension nest-egg in the banking and financial crash.
The double-whammy of loss was hugely traumatic but he eventually came to terms with it. RTÉ was always a cockpit of internal intrigue: in current affairs, ambitious socialists were suspicious of anyone not of the left. They assumed that Gay Byrne was a closet Fianna Fáiler – just as some of the Workers’ Party members belonged to secret cumainn.
FROM my conversations with him, I believe Gay Byrne (in common with more than 80% of the voters) just didn’t like the idea of socialism; he supported business and admired success while suspicious of governments squandering taxpayers’ money.
He didn’t despise Charlie Haughey and the leftists assumed that if he wasn’t overtly against Fianna Fáilers he must be secretly one of them.
I suspect he voted for Fianna Fáil and with Fine Gael at different times. In 2011, he toyed with the idea of being Fianna Fáil’s candidate in the upcoming presidential election but eventually declined.
The Late Late Show only found its unique format when he insisted on being producer as well as presenter. He was a brilliant producer, an editor with an unerring instinct for what would interest listeners and viewers – and fiercely competitive about ratings.
His radio programme fascinated the women of Ireland between nine and 10am each weekday. Through the 1970s and 1980s, The Gay Byrne Hour regularly lifted stories from the Daily Mail.
The newspaper’s editor, David English, targeted women readers just as Gay and his team pursued female listeners. And the Daily Mail became Britain’s most successful newspaper while The Gay Byrne Hour – it ran from 1973 to 1998 – was Ireland’s most popular radio programme.
I often wonder if Gay Byrne knew he was not the first choice as chairman of the Road Safety Authority in 2006. Transport minister Martin Cullen had first approached the recently retired editor of the Irish Independent but Vinnie Doyle had to decline because he had never held a driving licence.
Yet Gay threw himself into the role with gusto, challenging bureaucrats and politicians and road deaths plummeted through his eight years in charge.
I don’t think anyone told Gay about the brief stand-off in 1999 over U2’s surprise presentation of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle to him live on air at The Late Late Show when he was retiring.
One of the production team tried to make presentation conditional on the band performing. But U2 declined to play and the presentation went ahead.
Oh, and for everyone who attended or watched his epic Requiem Mass on television on Friday, guess what? Gay Byrne did not enjoy funerals and if possible, he avoided them.