Weekends will never be the same without her unique voice
IT WAS all about her voice – the rich, gravelly tones of which were instantly recognisable. For decades, RTÉ broadcaster Marian Finucane was considered a voice of reason, a voice of authority, a voice for women when women were not listened to as closely as they are now.
Her reputation was such that people who did not like to be interviewed would agree to go on her radio show because although they knew she was unlikely to give them an easy ride, they also knew they’d be treated fairly and with respect.
She brought Liveline to Irish afternoon radio; she took over from that other broadcasting behemoth, Gay Byrne, when he retired from his mid-morning show, and then she made Saturday and Sunday brunch-time, traditionally neglected slots on RTÉ radio, her own with a two-hour programme that has consistently attracted huge audiences.
And at one point she was asked to run for President of Ireland. ‘I thought about it,’ she once said. ‘It’s nice to be asked, but no.’
Before any of that, she won awards for hosting Women Today, and in a time very different to this one, she was honoured internationally for a documentary she made in 1980 about an Irish woman who travelled to England for an abortion.
She guarded her own personal life fiercely; not even her old friend Mike Murphy could persuade her to talk about subjects she was unwilling to discuss, as he found when he interviewed her during his brief return to RTÉ television in 2011.
But she was extremely talented at drawing others out, listening to them properly, her own innate curiosity allowing the conversation take a natural course, which often resulted in radio gold.
Marian Finucane was born in 1950, the youngest of five children. Her mother Maura was a teacher, while her father Dan Finucane was a garda. He died when she was just 12 years old, and she once explained how watching her mother raise her children alone in 1960s Ireland was instrumental in nurturing her own feminist beliefs.
‘There was one rate of pay for married men and another lower rate for single men,’ she said. ‘And then there was one rate for all women, which was less than single man. It sounds Neanderthal now, and that’s progress.’
For most of her secondary school years she went to Scoil Chaitríona on Eccles Street in Dublin city, but when her mother suspected she might be getting a bit out of hand, she sent her to board at St Louis Convent in Monaghan to sit her Leaving Certificate.
‘Even at that stage I was very interested in politics and debating and all of that kind of thing,’ she explained in an interview a couple of years ago. ‘And I would be out late at night but sadly not cavorting. So I was sent off to the nuns. I hated that year.’
After school she went to Bolton Street to study architecture, because she was good at maths and physics.
‘I knew I didn’t want to be a teacher. I wanted something a bit different,’ she recalled.
She was one of three women in a class of about 40 men.
‘It was very intimidating walking in the door first,’ she admitted. ‘I had never seen so many fellas in one room, but I got on like a house on fire socially. I got involved with inter-varsity debating and I spent a hell of a lot more time talking about politics than I did about architecture.’
Before graduating she met the RTÉ current affairs presenter John O’Donoghue, who asked her to audition for the radio station.
But while she didn’t get that particular job, she did end up scoring work as a television and radio continuity announcer in the early 1970s. By 1976 she was presenting a newspaper and book review show called Paperchase, and then was a reporter on Pat Kenny’s first radio show.
Her real break came with the radio show Women Today, where one of her stand-out moments was a discussion on the ability of women to have orgasms, which naturally led to all sorts of rows.
‘We were nearly permanently on a high. The more trouble we got into, the more fun we had,’ she once said.
She took a while out from RTÉ at one point, and in 1981 she spent a short time editing Status Magazine, a monthly publication for women.
But she returned to RTÉ and in the mid1980s was presenting a brand-new show, which involved listener participation. Liveline earned her the Radio Journalist of the Year award in 1988 and she presented it for 13 years.
When Gay Byrne retired in 1999 she took over his early morning radio slot, now renamed The Marian Finucane Show. In the summer of 2005 she moved with that show to the 11am to 1pm slot on Saturdays and Sundays. At the time it was suggested she had been shafted to make way for Ryan
Tubridy. It later emerged, however, that the move had been her own suggestion, and proved to be a fortuitous one for RTÉ, which saw its weekend radio ratings soar.
In 2008 she received a PPI Radio Award for outstanding achievement in broadcasting and she continued, right up until her last long interview on her weekend show in late November with retired Detective Garda Henry Ainsworth, to bring out the best, and sometimes the worst, in her guests.
There were so many standout moments during her career: the 2001 interview with hapless minister Joe Jacobs about the use of iodine tablets and emergency plans in the event of a terrorist attack here similar to 9/11, and the incredibly sensitive and honest interview she conducted with former justice minister Nora Owen about living with a husband suffering with dementia. Several times she grilled Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, and she repeatedly proved more than able to crack his usually polished, unflappable demeanour.
But perhaps most memorable of all was the time she interviewed
‘I would be out late at night, but sadly not cavorting’ ‘I chose a job in the public eye, my family didn’t’
the writer Nuala O’Faolain in 2008. Ms O’Faolain, one of Marian’s best friends, had been diagnosed with cancer six weeks earlier. Marian handled it magnificently, and with the utmost professionalism, just as her friend had probably known she would. It was in equal turns riveting and heartbreaking. Ms O’Faolain died a month later.
But by then Marian already knew much about tragedy and loss. In 1990 her only daughter Sinead died at the age of eight after developing leukaemia. She would rarely talk about it publicly.
‘It never goes away. I have the height of respect and admiration for people who have been bereaved
and who can talk about it,’ she once explained. ‘I just blubber.’
Colleagues remember how throughout her daughter’s illness she continued to work.
‘She would come in straight from the hospital and go straight out to studio because she couldn’t face anyone in the office,’ a former producer explained. ‘But as soon as that mic lit up she was absolutely on the ball.’
Sinead died at home, surrounded by her family.
‘We wanted to bring her home, although the hospital didn’t particularly,’ explained Marian. ‘But we did and it worked out very well.’
Afterwards, she served on the board of the Irish Hospice Foundation for 15 years.
‘I was on my knees with gratitude over home care and wanted every other human being in the country to have equal access to it,’ she said.
‘Home care should be an inherent part of our entire system and it is not – it is so patchy.’
Almost 20 years ago, after a trip to South Africa, she set up her own charity with her husband, Friends In Africa, which helps orphaned and vulnerable children with HIV.
She was married twice. First in her mid-20s to another architect, which broke up after five years.
‘We got on brilliantly but we weren’t a good marriage,’ she explained. ‘Simple as that.’
She then met John Clarke, and the couple had two children, Sinead and a son, Jack. But she would rarely be drawn on any of them.
‘I did a deal with myself that I chose a job in the public eye and my family didn’t,’ she always insisted. ‘John is terrific. He works the land, he’s interested in horses. He specialises in slow ones is what he says.’
They lived together in the depths of Kildare and in recent years celebrated Jack’s marriage. In early December the couple travelled to India for the wedding of a close friend of their son’s. It’s believed they had recently returned home and that Marian was due to return to the airwaves tomorrow morning.
What’s truly difficult to believe, and will take some time to sink in, is that we will no longer get to hear that voice, on a Saturday or Sunday morning, warmly welcoming us into her company. ‘Hello there, and a very good morning to you...’ Weekends will never quite be the same.