Four 'Late Late Show' talking points, including Bryan Dobson on his retirement
Bryan Dobson with Patrick Kielty on the 'Late Late Show' on RTÉ One on Friday.
Fresh from his final working day at RTÉ, retiring broadcaster Bryan Dobson reflected on his career in journalism on Friday night’s .
Dobson shared some significant memories from his career, from his beginnings in pirate radio, being blacklisted by RTÉ, and covering major news events.
Before he began his decades-long career with the State broadcaster he learned he was blacklisted due to his background in a pirate station.
After missing out on a job in Dublin, he became employed by the BBC in Belfast. it wasn’t long before RTÉ came calling.
“I said, ‘I thought I was blacklisted because I was a pirate?’ He said, ‘Don't worry about that. You've been laundered by the BBC’.” He stayed with the BBC for three years.
After moving to RTÉ, he covered events like 9/11 and the Good Friday Agreement.
He spoke about the difficulties of reporting in the digital age, saying he is “optimistic” about the future of the industry but cautious about some threats.
“It is very alarming what's happening in relation to fake news and to AI, which really seems to terrify people, the prospects for creating misinformation and for distorting the truth,” he said.
Dobson said he has seen “immeasurable” change since he began his career, but he believes the country could tackle the housing crisis better.
“We have a lot of problems today. Housing is the one, housing really is where it's at. We have the resources to be able to tackle this. We have the money. We're a wealthy nation.
"We're one of the wealthiest countries in the world so we can sort these problems out.
"I think if we have the determination, and we can put in place the plans, we can really create a much better future.
"I have a grandson now and my hope is that he grows up in a country where there's opportunity where he can work and he can live and in due course, if he wants to, he can raise a family as well.”
Dobson worked closely with Charlie Bird, who passed away in March after battling motor neurone disease (MDN) since 2021. He paid tribute to Bird and the enormous impact he had on those with MND.
“Charlie was a great battler, he was a tremendous fighter. I was on air the day the word came through that he passed away.
"We were all just devastated because we know what a struggle and a battle he put up, that he'd survived, really against the odds, for quite some time.”
On the day of Bird’s death, he interviewed someone from the Motor Neurone Disease Association and said he became emotional when she detailed how he normalised advances like his text-to-speech device for other people with MND.
“That was the moment that I choked up. Fortunately, I think she could see it and she kept talking because it took me just a couple of beats to get back.
"The power of that sort of positive influence that you can have on people's lives.”
Impressionist Mario Rosenstock was on the Late Late to mark 25 years to the day since he first impersonated some well-known Irish people live on air, starting .
As well as reflecting on some voices he returns to often, he revealed what happened when he met Roy Keane.
“I did cross Roy. I met Roy one-on-one the first time, it was just us in the room,” he recalled, likening the Cork soccer star to a prehistoric predator.
“He stared at me intently. He had these penetrating green eyes and he looked at me and it wasn't the eyes of somebody meeting you. It was the eyes of somebody deciding how they will eat you.
"Petrified, I sit down and I realised that I'm going to attempt to be Roy Keane in front of Roy Keane.
"I'm going to ask Roy Keane to buy into the idea that I'm Roy Keane. And that's particularly difficult when you consider the person I'm asking to do that.”
He said cracking a joke as Keano had the original laughing and defused the tension.
Champion jockey AP McCoy was in the studio just hours before his 50th birthday, complete with a birthday cake featuring a tiny sugarcraft horse.
He recalled some moments from his long career, though admitted he was reluctant to hear the list of bones he had broken over the years as “it makes me sound like I was really not very good”.
McCoy said he always enjoyed the rush of racing — and winning — despite the odds of injury, or worse.
“I've seen colleagues being fatally injured and I’ve seen life-changing injuries,” he said before describing the highs of the race.
“It’s a hard thing to say when you see what's happened to friends and colleagues but you go out and you fall or you’re kicked all over the place and you think ‘I’m gonna die’ and then you get up and think ‘I’m still alive’.”
