I enjoyed pizza with Terry Wogan’s son, and chicken and chips with my mam
OVER a decade ago, I covered for the legend of broadcasting, Terry Wogan, on the BBC. On one of the Sundays, Terry invited me to lunch at his favourite tapas restaurant near Broadcasting House – since renamed Wogan House – where we chatted for a few hours about radio in general but also the presence of Irish broadcasters in particular.
He very decently gave me his contact details and told me to get in touch if I ever needed anything. At the time, it turned out, I decided to throw my lot into my Irish commitments as I wanted to be near my family and couldn’t offer more than occasional fill-in slots.
So I was delighted when his son Mark very kindly invited me to lunch in one of his highly regarded pizza restaurants, Homeslice (check them out next time you’re in London – outrageously delicious).
We chatted about his wonderful dad and his contribution to the broadcasting world.
I wrote a book a long time ago called The Irish Are Coming which featured short biographies of the Irish who made their mark on British society. When writing about Terry, I was struck by the common feeling that he was a very important figure in the world of soft power. It was a very difficult time to have an Irish accent in the UK in the 1970s and ’80s as IRA bombings wreaked havoc in Ireland and the UK. Terry’s soft lilt beaming out to eight million radio listeners helped take the edge off things for a lot of people. I’m not sure he realised that but it was a welcome gift to Irish and British audiences alike.
Mark is an accomplished restaurateur and now hosts Spooning With Mark Wogan, an enormously popular podcast in which he talks to people about the food they think they like and the food they think they hate! It’s clever and different and a perfect combination of gastronomy and broadcasting.
Honourable mention to Kiefer Moriarty, amiable restaurant manager and proud son of Sligo town who earns a buck at Homeslice, in parallel to his acting career (which I have no doubt will bring him far).
Last weekend, I made it home to Ireland for the first time this year. It’s probably the longest I’ve been away from home since Irish college, and I was keen to reconnect with my family. The first port of call was family pints on Friday night in O’Donoghue’s on Dublin’s Merrion Row, one of my favourite watering holes. It was great to be able to reassure them about how happy I am in London. Any concerns about home sickness were unfounded in the end and my calendar is jammed for the next two months as various brothers, sisters, friends, my girls and my mother are booking dates to join me for the weekend and to have a mooch.