Ryan Tubridy: 'It's liberating to be free from a format, now I'm my own boss'
TV personality Ryan Tubridy on Dun Laoghaire Pier, Dublin. Picture: Sam Boal/Collins Photos
Now that the RTÉ payments scandal is in the rear-view mirror, what’s the feeling that is left? I’m expecting Ryan Tubridy to say bitterness or annoyance, or regret even, but he surprises me.
“I’d say largely gratitude that it turned out so well,” he says, putting emphasis on the word ‘well’.
“At the time, I was going through probably all the stages of grieving you go through in life when something horrible happens to you. And then you assess, you reflect and you get the hell on with it.”
He pauses for a beat: “And that’s what I’m doing. I’m getting the hell on with it. I married a beautiful woman, I have extraordinary daughters. I have a selection-box of jobs that I adore. I’m not beholden to a machine. I’m happy.”
It doesn’t feel like a performance, he really does seem happy.
His work life as he knew it may have imploded in the summer of 2023, when a statement by RTÉ revealed it had understated his pay by €345,000 between 2017 and early 2023, but Tubridy 2.0 seems to view the whole debacle as a blessing in disguise of sorts.
“I could have drifted into my 50s wondering ‘what if?’” he says, “or I could have just rebooted everything, which is what happened, thank God.”
Part of that reboot is his podcast, “a passion project” that’s now on its fifth season. It’s one aspect of his new work life that brings him joy: “I like the freedom of a podcast. It is a very liberating thing to do after 20 years of being beholden to a system.
“It’s liberating to be free from a format, whether it’s a talk show or chat show or indeed a radio show, which I particularly loved. Suddenly you’re your own boss, and that’s really interesting.”
Podcasting also means that he has the luxury of time. He can draw people out, allow the conversation to segue in an unplanned direction, he can be unhurried and get the best from his guests.
“If I had Colm Meaney or Brian Cox or whoever on , I really would only have had 15 minutes, maybe 12. Now I’ve got 45 to 50. And we can go everywhere. It’s so satisfying,” he says.
He’s taking the podcast on the road, having been “so heartened” by the reception the first Bookshelf Live got at Dún Laoghaire’s Pavilion Theatre in March — “it sold out and there were another 200 people on the waiting list” — with Cork’s Opera House the next stop, ahead of shows in Limerick, Galway, and Dublin.
He’s looking forward to popping into his favourite pub, the Hi-B, and the Imperial Hotel for a coffee or lunch: “They’re my go-tos.”
His guests for the Cork show are John and Francis Brennan of fame, and that section follows the same format as his podcast, with his guests talking about a book from their childhood, a book that brought them joy, and a book that changed their lives.
The other half of the show is somewhat novel.
“I’ll be riffing on life and times; career, people I’ve met, interviews, positions I’ve been in,” Tubridy says.
He describes this half of as like “a stand-up show” and the stories he tells will be prompted by the audience — here’s the novel bit — who will be able to submit their questions via a QR code in the foyer.
“The people who come to the show click onto that and then they shoot in questions. So you can ask me anything, it’s like a mad press conference, and I’ll answer them completely on the hoof,” he says.
“It’s intriguing, because it throws up all sorts of really interesting war stories that I’ve accumulated on and off air over the last 20 years. So you’re getting two shows for the price of one. Also, what’s interesting is that because I’m much more relaxed and chilled out in life nowadays, you see a very different side to me than you’ve ever seen before.”
Is there any question that you won’t answer?
“No,” he says, sounding ever so slightly offended.
You’ll literally answer anything?
“I’ll answer anything,” he promises.
He got the QR code idea from seeing a live show of Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell’s The Rest is Politics podcast: “I went back to my team and I said, ‘can make you make this happen?’ And they said, ‘easy’.”
He loves a good podcast and his long list of favourites is mostly of the political variety — , — with Conan O’Brien thrown in for a bit of light relief.
He listens to all of these on his “5-7km” morning run, or when he’s travelling, which he often is.
He’s not, as you might imagine, good at doing nothing: “Yesterday I pretty much forced myself to go to the cinema just to turn off my phone and chill out.”
It was Lee Cronin’s
Part of his travelling is to London where he lived for a couple of years and where he now has a Sunday- afternoon radio show on Times Radio.
Because the station is linked to the newspapers, he can tap into correspondents and contacts all over the globe. He just has to ask.
“I can say to them, I would like to do an item on and they’ll say, ‘great, we’ll get you Mr Sulu from the Enterprise’. And sure enough, up comes George Takei last week and I’m interviewing him,” he says.
His stint living in London means he’s made connections in the media world and has quite a network of pals. Marmite broadcaster Piers Morgan is one, and he’s been at a few of the host’s legendary lunches in The Devonshire, a Soho pub run by Dubliner Oisín Rogers.
“We’re very good friends, firm friends now,” he says of Rogers, describing The Devonshire as “a hub for artists and media people and singers and painters”.
There is, he says, “a bohemian twist to it” and anyone can show up, from “Glen Hansard to Timotheé Chalamet”.
“I’ve seen them all there. It’s gas. It’s become the place to be,” he says.
Tubridy has great time for Morgan, whose father was Irish and who died when Morgan was one: “We became friendly when he was on a couple of times. We went for a pint after the show. Then, when I went to London, he was one of the first people to get in touch to say, come and have lunch or have coffee; he was very welcoming and very warm. Very nice, very kind.”
He acknowledges Morgan “might drive a lot of people mad” and admits he thinks “he can panto it up”.
“But by and large when he’s one- on-one in a private set-up, he’s a very thoughtful, very reflective person,” Tubridy says.
He clarifies they are not “hanging out all the time, by any means” but they are friendly and he thoroughly enjoys Morgan’s Devonshire lunches, which are “a nice way of meeting people in London” where he can have “off-the-record chats about what’s happening in the world”.
London is great, but Dublin is where he calls home these days, and a very important part of that world is his wife: Clinical psychologist and former Clare Kambamettu. They’re still newly-weds, having married last December in Clifden. How is married life?
“It’s tremendous. It really is tremendous. I couldn’t have met Clare at a better time. I met her when everything was going great, then things weren’t going great and things are now great again,” he says, and you can hear the smile in his voice.
“I hit the jackpot, and I’m enjoying every minute of it.”
- ‘The Bookshelf Live’ with Ryan Tubridy, Cork Opera House, April 30, corkoperahouse.ie
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