Irish broadcaster, late-night presenter Gay Byrne dies
LONDON (AP) — Gay Byrne, a former television presenter and radio host who became a fixture in Irish households and used his celebrity to shine a light on the shadier aspects of Irish society, died Monday, his longtime employer RTE said. He was 85.
Byrne died after undergoing treatment for cancer, RTE said.
A staple of Irish households, he did a decadeslong stint as host of “The Late Late Show,” and also hosted other radio and TV programs for Ireland’s national broadcaster. Known affectionately as Uncle Gaybo, he championed social causes and used his celebrity to illuminate the darker corners of Ireland.
“He challenged Irish society, and shone a light not only on the bright but also the dark sides of Irish life,” Irish President Michael Higgins said in a statement. “In doing so, he became one of the most familiar and distinctive voices of our times, helping shape our conscience, our self-image, and our idea of who we might be. … He had a sense of what was just.”
Byrne began working as a newsreader and announcer on Radio Eireann in the 1950s before moving to Granada Television in Manchester. He later commuted between Dublin and the U.K., working for both the
BBC and RTE. In the 1960s, he returned to Ireland fulltime as the presenter and producer of “The Late
Late Show.”
One of Byrne’s more famous interviews was with the boy band Boyzone, soon after it formed in 1993. Standing between a shirtless, overall-wearing Shane Lynch and a bare-chested, red suspender-wearing Keith Duffy, Byrne opened the show before a live audience with the proclamation that the “macho men have come to town.”
After learning that some of the group was able to play instruments, Byrne exclaimed: “I was told you don’t play instruments at all, none of you. I was also told that you don’t sing at all, none of you. And knowing that you don’t play, you don’t sing and you can’t write music, I thought you’d go very far — but now you’ve wrecked the whole thing.” When an audience member wryly noted that the band members seemed more like Chippendale dancers than musicians, Byrne quipped, “Listen. What do you expect? They’re only starting.”