Ó Riada’s tribute to ‘honest and true’ Late Late host
COMPOSER and Cór Chúil Aodha director Peadar Ó Riada has fond recollections of the time he appeared on the Late Late Show for what he described as a ‘painless interrogation’ at the hands of the late Gay Byrne.
Paying tribute to Gay, who died at home in Howth earlier this week, Peadar Ó Riada said that he found the legendary TV host to be ‘a man that was honest and true’.
Extending his sympathy to Kathleen, Crona and Suzy and their families, Peadar recalled a man who ‘ did not have to think about who he was’.
Peadar admitted to not being on the same page as Gay in terms of his views on the Irish language and traditional music.
“I did not share his negativity to the Irish language and his occasional references to didlledeedi music.”
However Peadar did say that Gay was a frequent attender at a series of concerts his father, Seán Ó Riada, played with Seán Maguire, the famous Belfast fiddle player and Barney
McKenna, later of The Dubliners at the Old Sheiling pub in Dublin in the late 1950s.
“Gay, a noted jazz enthusiast, may not have been as interested, however, in the excellent traditional music as he was in the harpist accompanying the three other musicians. one Kathleen Watkins, whom Gay had just begun to court.
“But, on the other hand, he began courting Kathleen and would turn up to a series of gigs she, my father Seán Ó Riada, Barney McKenna and Sean Maguire used to have in the Old Sheiling in Dublin.”
Regarding his appearances on The Late Late Show, Peadar said: “He got me the first time I was on his show and I spilled my life and influences to him unconsciously, as his enquiring gaze and attentive ears really heard me and, like a stroked cat, I purred and spilt. “The interrogation was painless. “I was not conscious of it.
“In the green room, sipping dropeens afterwards, he said, straight out, that he liked to think that underneath all the showbuis.and razzmatazz, there was still a bit of himself left.
“I have never met another person who could voice such an self-effacing idea.
“Only an honest and true heart could say that and he need not fear, to me it seemed all of him, was always, all there. That was his strength. His outward looking, searching, enquiring mind did not allow himself to get in the way, even though he was a giant in Irish broadcasting.
“On subsequent Late Lates and a radio special, i found him consistently the same gentle enquiring mind,” he said.
“He enriched, emboldened, expanded my confidence and reminded me by his actions, of the importance of being true and honest even when others may think you naive.”
The first time the Gaeltacht composer was on The Late Late Show in the 1980s, his interview was the last item and Gay extended the show by an extra 20 minutes as the conversation had become so enthralling and engaged.
Subsequently Peadar was a guest when The Late Late Show, with Gay as host and compere, did a special on Ceol Gaelach and another special programme about Ciarán Mac Mathúna, whose programme ‘Mo Cheol Thú’ was an iconic fixture on the Sunday morning radio schedules.