Bowman works mostly as a freelance journalist. He co-presents a radio show, The Rude Awakening, on Dublin’s FM104 with Scott Williams, George Hellis and Margaret Callanan for two years between 1993 and 1994 before joining the Sunday Independent newspaper as a columnist. He later presents television programmes on RTÉ, such as the quiz show Dodge the Question.
Bowman dies in a fall at his home on Fitzgerald Street in Harold’s Cross, Dublin, on March 6, 2000. He is found lying in the kitchen near the foot of the stairs. His death is believed to be the result of a fall down the stairs or from a stool, which is found nearby.
TaoiseachBertie Ahern says that he is deeply saddened on learning the news of Bowman’s death. His thoughts and prayers he says are with his family at this very sad time.
The leader of the Labour Party, Ruairí QuinnTD, expresses his shock and sadness on hearing of the death. He says that Bowman was without doubt one of the bright lights of Irish journalism. He extends his deepest sympathies to Bowman’s son, Saul, and to his parents John and Eimer.
The Fine Gael leader, John Bruton, says that few people he knew brought a smile to the face of anyone they met more readily. He says that his infectious good humour and iconoclastic attitude to life conveyed itself to all with whom he came into contact. He adds that Bowman will be missed for many years to come.
The editor of the Sunday Independent, Aengus Fanning, says that Bowman was one of the most brilliant journalists of his generation.
Bowman is survived by his parents, his sister Emma, his brothers Abie and Daniel and his only son Saul Philbin Bowman.
Jimmy Magee, Irish sports broadcaster known as The Memory Man, is born on January 31, 1935, in New York City. He spends over half a century in sports broadcasting, and presents radio and television coverage of the Olympic Games since 1968 and the FIFA World Cup since 1966. By the time of his retirement he is the longest-serving sports commentator in the English-speaking world.
Magee is born to Patrick (Paddy) Magee and his wife Rose (née Mackin). The family returns to Ireland shortly after his birth. He and his three siblings are subsequently raised in Cooley, County Louth. As a child he is influenced by the sports commentary of the legendary Gaelic games broadcaster Michael O’Hehir. He recalls commentating as a seven-year-old for his next-door neighbour on a variety of imaginary games that the young Magee is also playing in. He also speaks of making up his own radio commentary in a field at a young age.
After being educated locally, Magee secures a full-time clerical post with Dundalk, Newry and Greenore Railway. While still working at the Railway he begins his broadcasting career. He starts out as a reporter for the Radio Éireann programme Junior Sports Magazine. Other contributors on the programme are Jim Tunney and Peter Byrne, former football correspondent with The Irish Times. On leaving his Railway job, he presents a number of sponsored radio programmes before concentrating on sport. He is a producer, presenter and script writer for Radio Éireann’s sponsored programmes in the 1950s and 1960s.
Magee and his wife Marie are married on October 11, 1955, and have five children: Paul, a soccer player with Shamrock Rovers F.C. (winning the League of Ireland Cup in 1977), who died of motor neuron disease, in May 2008, Linda (b. 1959), June (b. 1961), Patricia (b. 1962), and Mark (b. 1970).
Magee’s column or quiz appears in every single publication of the Sunday World since the first edition in 1973.
Magee is also a staple of RTÉ’s coverage of the Olympic Games. Beginning at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, he attends the eleven subsequent Olympic games as a commentator with RTÉ. In 2012, he commentates on the boxing for RTÉ at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, including Katie Taylor‘s gold medal-winning fight. At the 2016 Summer Olympics, he provides commentary on the football.
From 1987 to 1998 Magee hosts Know Your Sport, a sports-themed quiz show, along with George Hamilton. His broadcasting career also sees him provide commentary for over 200 international football games, 30 European Cup finals, multiple Tour de France cycle races, World Athletic Championships and boxing. He also narrates numerous videos on sport in general such as The Purple and Gold, Meath Return to Glory, etc.
A freelancer, Magee works for Channel 4 in 1994 and signs for UTV in 1995 on a three-year contract where a lifetime ambition of commentating on All-Ireland Finals is achieved. He commentates on three finals in both hurling and football.
Magee launches his memoir, Memory Man, in 2012. Some of his one-liners in commentaries have become famous or infamous, what are affectionately known in the broadcasting industry as Colemanballs after the famed commentating clangers of BBC broadcaster David Coleman.
In the emotionally trying year of 1989, Magee’s mother and wife die within months of each other, Marie dying at the young age of 54.
Magee dies on September 20, 2017, after a short illness. Many tributes are made to him including TaoiseachLeo Varadkar who says, “His commentaries were legendary and based on a breadth of sporting knowledge that was peerless.” RTÉ Head of Sport Ryle Nugent says, “It’s hard to put it into words, the man meant an inordinate amount to so many people, I think he was the soundtrack to many generations.”
In 1972 Magee wins a Jacob’s Award for his radio sports commentaries. In 1989, he is the subject of a special tribute show on The Late Late Show. At the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, the International Olympic Committee presents him with a replica of its torch.
Brendan O’Carroll, Irish actor, comedian, director, producer and writer, is born in Finglas, Dublin, on September 17, 1955. He is best known for portraying foul-mouthed matriarch Agnes Brown on stage and in the BBC and RTÉ television sitcom Mrs. Brown’s Boys. In 2015, he is awarded the Irish Film and Television Academy Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to Irish television.
O’Carroll is the youngest of eleven children. His mother, Maureen, is a Labour PartyTD and his father, Gerard O’Carroll, is a carpenter. His father dies in 1962 when O’Carroll is six years old, and his mother raises the eleven children with little money. He attends Saint Gabriel’s National School and leaves at the age of twelve. He has a string of occupations, including being a waiter and a milkman.
Having become well known as a comedy guest on The Late Late Show, O’Carroll releases four stand-up videos, titled How’s your Raspberry Ripple, How’s your Jolly Roger, How’s your Snowballs and How’s your Wibbly Wobbly Wonder.
O’Carroll writes the screenplay to Sparrow’s Trap, a boxing movie. The film, which has Stephen Rea cast in the lead role, runs into financing difficulties midway through the shoot when the distributor withdraws and it is abandoned. Incurring debts of over €1 million, he becomes bankrupt and the film has never been produced.
O’Carroll presents a quiz show called Hot Milk and Pepper on RTÉ One, with long-term collaborator Gerry Browne.
In 1992, O’Carroll performs a short radio play titled Mrs. Brown’s Boys and shortly afterwards he writes four books titled The Mammy, The Granny, The Chisellers and The Scrapper. In 1999, a movie named Agnes Browne, starring Anjelica Huston, is released, based on his book The Mammy. He also co-writes the screenplay. He then decides to put together his own family theatre company, Mrs. Browne’s Boys, and dresses up as a woman to play his part, as the actress he had originally hired did not show up.
From 1999 to 2009, O’Carroll writes and performs in five plays. Since 2011, the stage shows have been re-toured across the UK. In 2011, his plays are adapted into a television sitcom, with the name “Browne” shortened to “Brown.” From its beginning in 2011 through January 2022, 28 episodes have aired, across three series, several Christmas-special episodes and a one-off live episode that aired in 2016 on RTÉ One and BBC One. Mrs. Brown’s Boys D’Movie is released on June 27, 2014, and is a significant success in the UK, staying at number one in the box office for two consecutive weeks. However, the film has negative reviews with one saying it is not just unfunny but “close to anti-funny.” O’Carroll’s wife, his sister Eilish, his son Danny, and his daughter Fiona all appear or have appeared on episodes of Mrs. Brown’s Boys.
It is announced in January 2015 that the BBC wants O’Carroll to do “other stuff,” due to the fact that Mrs. Brown’s Boys has become so successful. He reveals plans to adapt his first ever written play, patser grey, into a television sitcom.
O’Carroll is married to Doreen O’Carroll from 1977 to 1999. He marries Jennifer Gibney in 2005. They live in Davenport, Florida. He has three surviving children: Fiona, Danny, and Eric. Their first son Brendan dies of spina bifida at just a few days old. He has six grandchildren, four children from Fiona and two children from Danny.
O’Carroll’s paternal grandfather, Peter O’Carroll, a father of seven and a prominent republican, is shot dead on October 16, 1920 at his home in Manor Street, Dublin. Two of his sons are Irish Republican Army volunteers. The incident is investigated in the television series Who Do You Think You Are?
In March 2016 O’Carroll appears in the BBC Two documentary Brendan O’Carroll – My Family at War, which explores the involvement of three of his uncles — Liam, James and Peadar O’Carroll — in the Easter Rising.
Cowley is born September 8, 1923 in Ardbraccan, Navan, County Meath, the third child of Patrick Cowley, a small farmer, and his wife Margaret. Educated at the local national school, he leaves at the age of thirteen to work on the family farm. He also works with a horse and cart drawing stones from a local quarry. He is an enthusiastic amateur actor and learns his trade in the fit-ups of the forties and fifties. Moving to England, he gets parts in television shows such as Z-Cars and No Hiding Place. During the 1950s and 60s, he is also very active in theatre, and has a long association with the Globe theatre company in Dún Laoghaire, which he joins in 1956. He also plays in the Abbey, Gate and Olympia theatres, travels Europe in 1960–61 with John Millington Synge‘s The Playboy of the Western World, and stars in the early Hugh Leonard play I Loved You Last Summer.
Cowley is best known for his portrayal of the bluff countryman Tom Riordan in RTÉ’s rural drama, The Riordans. First airing on January 4, 1965, it runs until May 28, 1979. One of RTÉ’s most successful programmes, it has a huge audience and a considerable social impact through its treatment of controversial topics such as divorce, contraception, and mixed marriages. When it ends in 1979 Cowley is bitterly disappointed and accuses RTÉ of throwing him on the scrap heap. After this he continues to work in theatre and has occasional appearances on screen, including a part in Jim Sheridan‘s The Field (1991) and the British espionage television series, The Avengers.
Cowley also writes poetry and a play, A Fool and His Money. His other hobbies include a passion for history (particularly the 1798 period), hurling, Gaelic football, boxing, and swimming. A patron and a founder member of the Irish Council Against Blood Sports in 1967, he is a leading opponent of hare coursing, popularising the cause through an appearance on The Late Late Show in 1967.
In 1953 Cowley marries Annie D’Alton, an actor who later appears with him in The Riordans, two years after the death of her first husband, the dramatist Louis D’Alton. They have one son.
Cowley dies in Navan on February 13, 1998. His wife precedes him in death in March 1983.
Born in Derry on March 23, 1917, McLaughlin is the son of a butcher and cattle dealer, and one of nine children. He starts singing in local churches in the Bogside at the age of seven, and as a teenager adds two years to his age to enlist in the Irish Guards, later serving abroad with the Palestine Police Force, before returning in the late 1930s to join the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
Known as The Singing Bobby, McLaughlin becomes a local celebrity before starting to work the UK variety circuit, where he also plays summer seasons in English seaside resorts. The renowned Irish tenor John McCormack (1884–1945) advises him that his voice is better suited to a lighter repertoire than the operatic one he has in mind, and urges him to find an agent. He finds the noted impresario Jack Hylton (1892–1965) who books him, but is unable to fit his full name on the bill, thus Joseph McLaughlin becomes Josef Locke.
Locke makes an immediate impact when featured in “Starry Way,” a twenty-week summer show at the Opera House Theatre in Blackpool, Lancashire, England in 1946 and is rebooked for the following summer, then starring for three seasons at the Blackpool Hippodrome. He appears in ten Blackpool seasons from 1946 to 1969, not the nineteen seasons he later claims.
Locke makes his first radio broadcast in 1949, and subsequently appears on television programmes such as Rooftop Rendezvous, Top of the Town, All-star Bill and The Frankie Howerd Show. He is signed to the Columbia label in 1947, and his first releases are the two Italian songs “Santa Lucia” and “Come Back to Sorrento.”
In 1947, Locke releases “Hear My Song, Violetta,” which becomes forever associated with him. It is based on a 1936 tango “Hör’ mein Lied, Violetta” by Othmar Klose and Rudolf Lukesch. The song “Hör’ mein Lied, Violetta” is often covered, including by Peter Alexander and is itself based on Giuseppe Verdi‘s La traviata. His other songs are mostly a mixture of ballads associated with Ireland, excerpts from operettas, and familiar favourites.
In 1948, Locke appears in several films produced by Mancunian Films, usually as versions of himself. He plays himself in the film Holidays with Pay. He also appears as “Sergeant Locke” in the 1949 comedy What a Carry On!.
In 1958, after Locke has appeared in five Royal Variety Performancetelecasts, and while he is still at the peak of his career, the British tax authorities begin to make substantial demands that he declines to meet. Eventually he flees the country for Ireland, where he lays low for several years. When his differences with the taxman are eventually settled, he relaunches his career in England with tours of the northern variety clubs and summer seasons at Blackpool’s Queen’s Theatre in 1968 and 1969, before retiring to County Kildare, emerging for the occasional concert in England. He later appears on British and Irish television, and in November 1984 is given a lengthy 90-minute tribute in honour of the award he is to receive at the Olympia theatre commentating his career in show business on Gay Byrne‘s The Late Late Show. He also makes many appearances on the BBC Television‘s long running variety show The Good Old Days.
In 1991, the Peter Chelsom film Hear My Song is released. It is a fantasy based on the notion of Locke returning from his Irish exile in the 1960s to complete an old love affair, and save a Liverpool-based Irish night-club from ruination. Locke is played by Ned Beatty, with the singing voice of Vernon Midgley. The film leads to a revival in Locke’s career. A compilation CD is released and he appears on This Is Your Life in March 1992. He performs in front of the Prince and Princess of Wales at the 1992 Royal Variety Show, singing “Goodbye,” the final song performed by his character in the film. He announces prior to the song that this will be his final public appearance.
Locke dies at the age of 82 in Clane, County Kildare on October 15, 1999, and is survived by his wife, Carmel, and a son.
On March 22, 2005, a bronze memorial to Locke is unveiled outside the City Hotel on Queen’s Quay in Derry by Phil Coulter and John Hume. The memorial is designed by Terry Quigley. It takes the form of a spiraling scroll divided by lines, representing a musical stave. The spiral suggests the flowing melody of a song, and is punctuated by images illustrating episodes in his life, including Locke in police uniform, Blackpool Tower, Carnegie Hall, and the musical notes of the opening lines of “Hear My Song.”
A biography of the singer, entitled Josef Locke: The People’s Tenor, by Nuala McAllister Hart is published in March 2017, the centenary of his birth. The book corrects many myths that the charismatic Locke circulated about his career.
Adèle King, Irish entertainer better known as Twink, is born on April 4, 1951 in Dublin. She is the mother of singer Chloë Agnew from the group Celtic Woman.
King spends more than 30 years in Dublin’s theatres, 26 years in the Gaiety Theatre, two years in the Point Theatre and five years in the Olympia Theatre. At the Olympia Theatre she co-produces and co-writes much of the shows. She has been described as Ireland’s “Panto Queen.” She has roles in a number of theatrical productions in Ireland, including Dirty Dusting at the Gaiety Theatre and Menopause: The Musical.
King appears on Irish television regularly since the late 1960s. She stars in her own series Twink on RTÉ. She spends ten years on Play the Game, and makes many appearances as a guest on a wide range of programmes, including RTÉ’s The Late Late Show, being the subject of a tribute on that show in 2005. She also is the subject of a weekend visit by the television programme Livin’ with Lucy with Lucy Kennedy.
In 1993 King is the guest act at a Christmas concert by Perry Como at Dublin’s Point Theatre, televised to a worldwide audience of 880 million. In 2003 she takes part in RTÉ’s Celebrity Farm and in 2011 she wins TV3‘s Celebrity Head Chef, receiving €10,000 for charity as a result.
King has written an agony aunt page for the Irish magazine TV Now. In 2011, she is given an agony aunt programme on TV3 called Give Adele a Bell. However, after a delay, the programme is cancelled in June 2012 without an episode being made. She wins a Jacob’s Award for her performance in her 1981 Christmas Light Entertainment Special on RTÉ2.
King establishes a performance school in the summer of 2002, the Adèle King Theatre School in Castleknock and Greenhills. Pupils of the school have appeared on television, in films, and in commercials in Ireland and abroad. The school does not re-open for the 2008 autumn term.
King marries oboist David Agnew in 1983 and has two children, Chloë in 1989, who sings with the group Celtic Woman, and Naomi in 1993. The marriage ends after 21 years, in October 2004.
King describes the Irish singer Linda Martin as a “cunt” during a tirade in May 2010. The two had been friends for 30 years but afterwards both say they have no plans to speak to each other again.
King has pet dogs, cats, birds, and a donkey. She lives with her daughters in Knocklyon, Dublin. In April 2015 it is reported that she and her ex-husband face a bid by the Bank of Scotland to repossess a house which is mortgaged in both their names. The application for possession against King had already previously been adjourned by the court.
In September 2014 it is widely reported across major Irish media outlets that King’s dog, Teddy Bear, had been kidnapped. Commenting on the events, she is quoted describing Linda Martin as being “a very powerful woman in the dog world” and that the kidnapping marked her own personal “Erin Brockovich moment.” On September 24 she is reunited with her dog after a public tip-off leads to the police arrest of a man in Dublin.
O’Shea’s father, a banker, moves the family to Dublin when he is age 11. He is schooled in CBC Monkstown and is a sports fanatic playing rugby at school and a keen golfer and tennis player in Monkstown. He remains a keen fan of rugby, tennis and golf, playing tennis every Saturday and also giving opinions on Irish sports to radio and newspapers. He goes on to study Economics, English and Philosophy at University College Dublin (UCD) and has a career as a sports journalist in the Evening Press for many years after meeting Tim Pat Coogan while studying.
In 1977, O’Shea begins his charitable organisation with a 10,000 punts donation for a feeding project in Calcutta after which he founds GOAL. The charity has a major sporting backbone. John McEnroe, Pat Cash and Gordon D’Arcy are amongst the sport stars to have become “Goalies”(volunteers).
In its 36 years of operation, GOAL has distributed €790 million and has had over 1,400 volunteers. It has operated in over 50 countries worldwide. O’Shea cites watching the “Goalies” working around the world as the best part of his years involved in the charity. He believes that governments of developed countries should be far more involved in the distribution of aid.
A sometimes controversial figure, O’Shea is known for his forthright public statements, particularly when he feels political correctness is getting in the way of assisting those in need, and a hands on approach to tackling poverty related issues. He has been criticised by some in the INGO community for advocating military invasion and intervention in Sudan by the United States, UK and NATO, under the guise of humanitarian intervention. He has also been critical of perceived inaction by the UN in humanitarian crises in conflict zones and of governmental aid agencies in giving aid directly to allegedly corrupt African governments. He has advocated using private companies to provide aid and military forces to directly force aid on countries. Most other Irish Aid agencies disagree stating that every type of aid channels must be used and have described his policies as recolonisation.
In 2012, O’Shea is asked to slow down by his doctor. In November 2012, former Fianna Fáil politician, Barry Andrews, is appointed chief executive of GOAL.
O’Shea currently gives talks at NUI Galway and interpersonal skills class UCD. He has become involved with the university for a few years where he shares his story. He is an advocate for social (non-profit) entrepreneurs and tries to convince students to go down that path.
Although born in Dublin, Bourke lives most of his life in Tibradden, County Dublin. His father, a doctor, is in practice in the city. The children have an Irish-speaking nanny. His early exposure to Irish continues throughout his education, attending Colaiste Mhuire, Parnell Square, Dublin. He later attends University College Dublin for a course in Agricultural Science. He does not take his degree but always retains an interest in farming.
After leaving university Bourke meets two of his future bandmates in The Dubliners, Ronnie Drew and Barney McKenna, who invite him to join their sessions in O’Donoghue’s Pub where he plays tin whistle, mouth organ and guitar, and sings. Luke Kelly, who had been singing around the clubs in England, returns to Dublin and joins them, with the four gaining local popularity. Taking the name The Dubliners, the group puts together the first folk concert of its kind in Dublin. The concert is a success, then a theatrical production called “A Ballad Tour of Ireland” is staged at the Gate Theatre shortly afterwards. In 1964 fiddle player John Sheahan joins the band and this becomes known as the original Dubliners line-up.
Bourke is responsible for bringing a Gaelic element to The Dubliners’ music with songs such as “Peggy Lettermore” and “Sé Fáth Mo Bhuartha” being performed in the Irish language. He also sings a number of the group’s more lighthearted and humorous numbers such as “Jar of Porter,” “The Dublin Fusiliers,” “The Limerick Rake,” “Mrs. McGrath,” “Darby O’Leary,” “All For Me Grog” and “The Ballad of Ronnie’s Mare,” as well as patriotic songs such as “Roddy McCorley,” “The Enniskillen Dragoons,” “Take It Down From The Mast” and “Henry Joy.”
On April 5, 1974 The Dubliners travel to Eastbourne where they are to appear in concert. Kelly is worried by the way Bourke keeps moving his head about, as if trying to alleviate increasing pain. Four minutes into the second half, it is decided he cannot continue with the show. Kelly insists that a doctor should be phoned and instructs to await their return to the Irish Club at Eaton Square. The roadie for the trip, John Corry, thinks that it is better to drive straight to St. George’s Hospital in London, where the doctors diagnose a brain aneurysm. He is transferred to the Atkinson Morley Hospital in Wimbledon, while doctors wait for his wife to return from a trip to Ghana, to get her signature before operating. She is told that there is danger of further haemorrhaging. He is operated on at the earliest opportunity. The bleeding begins again while he is on the table which means that they cannot repair the damage, only staunch the bleeding. This leaves him paralysed down his left side and confused as to where he is and what has happened.
Bourke receives intensive therapy, attending a clinic in Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin. He is heartened by his progress and insists on rejoining The Dubliners on their next tour of the Continent in November that year.
Bourke’s continued insistence that he is fit enough to join them on the forthcoming German tour causes them considerable disquiet. They prefer he ease himself back to work, with a few small shows in Ireland. The tour gradually begins to take its toll on him, and it is decided that for the sake of his health he should return home. He flies from Brussels to Dublin.
Bourke makes his last public appearance on Ireland’s RTÉ One during The Late Late Show‘s tribute to The Dubliners in 1987. Despite his lingering paralysis he recites “The Lament for Brendan Behan” after which everyone in the studio, led by Ronnie Drew, sing “The Auld Triangle.”
Bourke dies on May 10, 1988 after a long illness. From 1974 until his death he had continued to be paid by the band. A fifth member of the group is not recruited until after his death.
Campbell is known as a guitarist and has a rough voice similar to the late founding member of The Dubliners, Ronnie Drew. He tour with three other ex-Dubliners as “The Dublin Legends,” now that the group name has been retired with the death of Barney McKenna. Although originally from Drogheda in County Louth, he later lives in Walkinstown, a suburb of Dublin.
It was Campbell’s suggestion that The Dubliners work with London-based Irish band The Pogues in the mid-1980s, thus giving them their second biggest UK hit to date, “The Irish Rover.” Their biggest hit is “Seven Drunken Nights” which reaches number 7 in the charts in 1967 and an appearance on Top of the Pops.
Campbell produces all of The Dubliners’ albums from 1987 onwards, as well as albums for many other Irish artists, including Foster and Allen, Brendan Shine, Daniel O’Donnell and Paddy Reilly. He plays locally with the Delta Showband, The Bee Vee Five and the Country Gents before joining Dermot O’Brien and the Clubmen and first meets The Dubliners when both acts tour England together in 1967. In the mid to late 1970s he more or less retires from the road and becomes involved in the growing Irish recording scene, first as a session musician and later moving to production.
In 2002, Campbell puts a complaint to a commission to inquire into sexual abuse as he says he was abused by the Christian Brothers as a child. In an interview he says “I felt emotional with hate at what this arsehole had got away with. He was abusing the whole class. I still haven’t heard anything back.”
While on tour in the Netherlands with The Dublin Legends, Campbell feels unwell during his final performance. He returns to his hotel at around 1:00 AM and goes to bed. He dies during the early hours of the morning of October 18, 2017. His body is flown back to Dublin where his funeral takes place on October 26, 2017.
Gerard “Gerry” Ryan, presenter of radio and television employed by Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), becomes the latest homegrown celebrity to feature in the Irish version of Madame Tussauds collection when he unveils a life-size model of himself at the Dublin museum on October 29, 2002.
Ryan is born in Clontarf, County Dublin on June 4, 1956. He describes his father, Vinnie, as a “slightly eccentric” dentist from a Presbyterian background and his mother, Maureen, as “a flamboyant woman” who comes from a theatrical background and works in the theatre. His godfather is broadcaster Eamonn Andrews. He is educated at St. Paul’s College, Raheny.
Ryan presents The Gerry Ryan Show on radio station RTÉ 2fm each weekday morning from 1988 until hours before his sudden death. He is presented with a Jacob’s Award for the show in 1990.
Ryan marries Morah Brennan in 1988 and they have five children: Lottie, Rex, Bonnie, Elliott and Babette. In 1997, Morah famously telephones her husband’s show and, under the name Norah, tells half a million listeners intimate details concerning his personal household habits. Gerry and Morah announce their separation in March 2008, which Ryan calls “a very painful experience.” He soon begins a relationship with the former South African Ambassador to Ireland and the then UNICEF Ireland executive director, Melanie Verwoerd.
Ryan is noted for his love of fine food and wine. He battles a weight problem for several years and takes Reductil (Sibutramine), a “slimming pill,” which he says is effective and safe. Ryan concedes in his autobiography Would the Real Gerry Ryan Please Stand Up, released in October 2008, that he drinks too much for his own good.
Ryan is found dead in the bedroom of his home on Leeson Street, Dublin on April 30, 2010.
Among the dignitaries to send tributes following Ryan’s death are Bono, Bill and Hillary Clinton, TaoiseachBrian Cowen, and PresidentMary McAleese. His funeral takes place on May 6, 2010, and is broadcast on 2fm, the home of Ryan’s radio show and a first for the predominantly youthpop-oriented station. His death also comes sixteen years to the day after he hosted Eurovision 1994.
An inquest shows that the cause of Ryan’s death is cardiac arrhythmia and that traces of cocaine found in Ryan’s system are the “likely trigger” of Ryan’s death. A considerable public controversy erupts when Ryan’s long-term use of cocaine comes to light. RTÉ eventually admits to having given insufficient coverage of Ryan’s cocaine habit in the aftermath of the inquest.
seamus dubhghaill 