Gay Byrne: How one visionary shaped Irish society

He interviewed lesbian nuns, discussed condoms and abortion, and held singer Sinéad O’Connor’s hand as she appeared on the show dressed in clerical garb as Mother Bernadette Mary.

Gay Byrne was the best-known face and voice in Ireland. He was the man in the street, a very private person, a master showman and shaman in Irish life for almost four decades.

This morass of contradictions made him perfectly placed to debunk the unsavoury aspects of Irish life. He somehow mirrored and shaped what we were. Byrne became the first undisputed king of the invisible empire of Ireland’s first television station.