Gay Byrne was a canny operator who allowed women be heard

Gay Byrne was a lifeline to a generation of housewives who tuned into his radio show after they got the kids out to school. And, says Richard Fitzpatrick, a new book argues that Gaybo gave them a badly needed voice.    

FINOLA DOYLE O’NEILL opens her new book The Gaybo Revolution: How Gay Byrne Challenged Irish Society by referencing a Lansdowne Market Research poll from 1998, which captures the ambivalent attitude people have towards Byrne. He came in joint first with Charlie Haughey as the country’s most reviled figure. Byrne was also voted Ireland’s most popular personality, however.

Most people of a certain age remember iconic television moments during his time at the helm of The Late Late Show. Less heralded has been the influence of his daily morning radio show on RTÉ — from 1973 until 1999 — in which he shone a light on some dark, ugly recesses of Irish life. Women’s issues were to the fore, unsurprising perhaps given an estimated 70% of his 800,000 listeners a day were “mammies”, according to Doyle O’Neill’s book.