Kerry’s part in some of Gaybo’s most defining TV moments

THERE are many highlights from Gay Byrne’s 37 years as host of the Late Late Show and a number of the most famous moments have a Kerry link.

One of Byrne’s best known interviews was his 1993 face-off with Annie Murphy, the woman at the centre of the Eamonn Casey scandal that had rocked the church and the country the previous year.

It was a notoriously frosty interview and Byrne subsequently came in for much criticism for the overtly hostile manner of his questioning.

The interview also gave us one of the Late Late’s most famous soundbites.

In a bid to end the interview on a light note Byrne suggested that if Ms Murphy’s son was “half as good a man” as his father Bishop Casey “he won’t be doing too bad”.

Murphy – who had handled the hostile host and audience which remarkable poise – shot back quickly.

“I’m not so bad either, Mr Byrne,” she said and left.

The Casey scandal shook conservative Ireland to the core in the early nineties and it was another scandal that led to another defining moment.

In 1985 – in what would be her last interview on the case – Joanne Hayes appeared on the Late Late Show to discuss the Kerry Babies Tribunal.

During an emotional interview Ms Hayes described how she had been treated.

“Did you not expect the tribunal to find as it did?” Byrne had asked.

“I didn’t expect a clap on the back but I didn’t expect they’d go so hard on me. After all, the tribunal was set up to look into the behaviour of the gardai but it was I who went on trial,” the young Kerry woman said.

One of his finest hours as a broadcaster came in 1997 when Byrne made a routine call to let a viewer know she’d won a car.

When Byrne asked why the winner didn’t seem happy with the news she told him that the night before her daughter had been knocked down and killed.

Byrne handled the situation with tremendous tenderness offering comfort and support to the devastated woman. Kerry poet Brendan Kennelly was a guest that night and Byrne asked him for a few words.

Kennelly’s quiet rendition of his poem ‘Begin’ stunned living rooms all over the country into silence.

Gay Byrne shares a humorous moment at an opening event with the 2011 Rose of Tralee Tara Talbot from Queensland.

Photo Domnick Walsh Gay Byrne with 2009 Tipperary Rose Denise Shouldice (right) and her twin sister Antonia Shouldice at the Rose Hotel during the festival’s 50th anniversary celebrations.

Photo by Domnick Walsh Ryan Tubridy (Rose host in 2003 and 2004); 2005 Rose of Tralee Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin; Kathleen Watkins (Gay Byrne’s wife and host of the 1977 Rose) and Gay Byrne pictured before the 50th Anniversary Rose Ball in 2009.

In one of his most famous interviews Gay Byrne speaks to Annie Murphy about her relationship with Bishop Eamonn Casey. Byrne came in for considerable criticism over his hostile approach.