Heartache for Ryan family as body not released

THE family of Gerry Ryan have had to endure further heartache as a delay in conducting a postmortem has meant they have not been able to receive his body.

The 53-year-old 2FM broadcaster, who was found dead in his city centre apartment in Dublin on Friday afternoon, may not be laid to rest until later in the week as the bank holiday has meant a postmortem might not be carried out until tomorrow.

His body was discovered by his partner, Melanie Verwoerd, when she and a builder working nearby entered Mr Ryan’s Upper Leeson St apartment at Friday lunchtime after colleagues had been unable to contact him.

Morah Ryan, who identified her husband’s body over the weekend, said the public’s emotional response to the death of her husband had helped the family deal with the devastating impact of his passing.

“Despite the fact that all our hearts are broken our pain is somewhat eased by the overwhelming number of messages of support and condolences that we have received,” she said.

Gardaí confirmed that while there was no evidence of a suspicious death, they are still carrying out investigations, while calls to the Dublin City Mortuary, located in Marino, not far from the Ryan family home in Clontarf, were not returned yesterday.

The delay in laying the popular radio and television broadcaster to rest comes as thousands more people signed a book of condolence at the radio centre in RTÉ yesterday. Almost 2,000 mourners added their signatures, filling at least eight books on Saturday, and similar numbers queued to sign yesterday before it was closed yesterday evening.

The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Emer Costello, has sanctioned the opening of a book of condolence at the Mansion House in Dublin City Centre from today.

She said she had grown up on Radio 2, as it then was, and Gerry Ryan, and said that he was “part of the fabric of the nation”.

“It is appropriate that Dublin honours one of its citizens and one if its finest broadcasters,” she said.

Meanwhile, RTÉ has confirmed no plans are in place regarding Gerry Ryan’s 2FM slot from 9am to 12pm.

A spokesman for RTÉ said Mr Ryan had not been due to broadcast today because the station had pre-recorded a Westlife special, due to run for most of the day. Mr Ryan had not been involved in the pre-recording, contrary to one newspaper report yesterday. A decision on who will occupy Mr Ryan’s seat tomorrow had not been made last night, the spokesman said.

Longer term, it is unknown whether RTÉ will seek to use the slot for a similar type of radio talk show.

Tributes continued to be paid to the late broadcaster yesterday. Cynthia Ní Mhurchú, who co-presented the Eurovision Song Contest in 1994, said women loved working with Ryan and that “he loved the limelight”.

She recalled in advance of the Eurovision he had told her “this is going to be one big party”.

She said she had been inundated with texts from people expressing their sorrow at his passing.

Elsewhere, Prime Time presenter Miriam O’Callaghan apologised over her tweet regarding Ryan’s death before RTÉ had publicly acknowledged it. She wrote on her Twitter account at 2.40pm on Friday that “tragically it is true”, but has since said she was with a number of people at the time who knew the 2fm presenter very well and they had been speaking about it.

“I was nowhere near the RTÉ building and they were all talking like everybody seemed to know,” she said.