Martin Barry: BBC documentary is a moving take on Cork journalist's life and last wish

Martin Barry, 30, died by assisted suicide in 2005. Some of his close friends have participated in a documentary series, The Last Request, with its tale of a man whose final wish was that his birth mother would be found 

Martin Barry: late Cork journalist is the subject of a BBC documentary series, The Last Request.  Picture: Maurice O'Mahony

Laura McDaid is a Coleraine-born journalist. In late April 2005, she was with Corkman Martin Barry – her 30-year-old friend and former boyfriend – when he died by assisted suicide in Zurich. The night before he passed away, he asked McDaid to fulfil a final wish: to find his birth mother and give her a message.

McDaid’s account of her time with Barry, and her quest to locate his birth mother, is told in a compelling radio documentary series, The Last Request, broadcast each day this week via BBC Radio 4.