Gareth O'Callaghan: Woke and wacky Gerry Ryan is still sorely missed

Fifteen years after his death, Gerry Ryan’s raw honesty, empathy, and irreverence still define what great Irish radio should sound like

Radio and Television Presenter Gerry Ryan in Eason’s for the signing of his autobiography. Picture: Photocall Ireland

As rewarding as it can be, a career in radio is not only fraught with risks and self-doubts, it can be cruel. 

The higher you climb, the more solitary the ascent becomes; and in the event your ratings drop like flies, the harder the fall is likely to be. As Ray D'Arcy was reminded recently, everyone is expendable. 

Change is constant, while popularity is a test of swings and roundabouts. It’s par for the course — take a hit, swallow your pride, dust yourself off, and start again. If only it were that simple. 

But what if a star performer dies unexpectedly at the height of his success? Gerry Ryan would have been 70 next year. It’s difficult to imagine that he could ever have been expendable. His name on the schedule might have been replaced numerous times since his death 15 years ago, but his absence has left a void that has never been filled. So let's for a moment imagine a sliding-door scenario where “the Ryan line is open" for business as usual. 

I can still hear the familiar booming voice as I write those words. Gerry Ryan’s three-hour RTÉ morning show, which moved from 2FM to Radio 1 five years ago following Sean O’Rourke’s retirement, has just celebrated its 37th anniversary. Gerry has also been presenting The Late Late Show since September 2009 — a deal sealed as a result of his appearance the year before while standing in for Pat Kenny. He is undisputedly Ireland's most successful radio and television star of all time. 

Despite offers from Newstalk and British commercial radio, it's understood he has just signed a contract said to be worth almost €5m that will see him remain with RTÉ until his 75th birthday. In another time, under different circumstances, could this have been a reality? Of course it could. When I think of his unabated success, his relentless enthusiasm, his unique ability to connect, and his appetite for taking risks, I believe he was the exception to expendability. He was a maverick, a recusant who single-mindedly drove whatever agenda was placed before him during his radio show. He could read his audience without the need to even see them. They were his and he was theirs.

He was his own boss. I’m reminded of a producer who was moved to other station duties a day after joining the show. Gerry didn’t like being told what he couldn’t do on air. He defined recalcitrant, and made morning radio compulsive listening. He was the blueprint that no one can replicate. Trying to analyse him doesn’t work, because he couldn’t do it himself. 

He just had it — whatever ‘it’ was — in spades. He wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea; but spontaneity and a palpable empathy became his craft, along with his pathos and humour. Show me another talk show host who could juggle sensibility, sensitivity and outright vulgarity. Did his success go to his head? Of course it did. As Dave Fanning said, Gerry had a “massive over-inflated opinion of himself”. 

So why make such a big deal of his radio career all these years later? 

Because he is still missed; and that speaks volumes about his place in listeners’ cars and homes every morning

2FM has never recovered from Gerry’s death. In the 12 months following his demise, the station lost over 100,000 listeners — similar to the population of Limerick. While his audience often numbered north of 300,000, in the 15 years since then the station has struggled to attract barely half that number. 

He set the nation’s agenda with interviews that were so compelling, I often felt the need to pull into a layby or sit in a car park while late for a meeting just to hear the conversation. 

Lavinia Kerwick spoke of her experience live on air with Gerry Ryan.

In 1992, Lavinia Kerwick phoned Gerry one morning after the 10am news, the day after her former boyfriend and rapist had been allowed to walk out of the Central Criminal Court, his sentencing adjourned for a year. 

She had been listening to Gerry reading from a newspaper account when, she recalled, he said something like “Well, if it was me, he wouldn’t have walked out of that court”. She was drawn to his words and rang him. She told him she wanted him to call her by her real name. In the hour that followed, she laid bare the reality of her rape, while also pointing out how the justice system had failed her. Not only did Gerry give her the space to talk, he did so with the incredible empathy and humanity that came naturally to him.

It was like nothing I’d ever heard before that day on Irish radio.

Lavinia became the first woman to waive her legal anonymity in order to talk publicly about her rape, which later led to landmark changes in the law, and the introduction in court of victim impact statements. By 11 o’clock that morning, her interview led the news bulletin. Twelve months later, her attacker was given a suspended nine-year sentence. 

By allowing her to talk about her experience, she said years later that Gerry could have lost his job, considering they were both deemed to be in contempt of court

 In an interview in Hot Press in 1990, Gerry told Liam Mackey it was the listeners who shaped the shows. “And luckily the listeners responded very positively to this invitation to come on-air and to discuss everyday things.” As for Gerry’s peers — Gay, Marian, and Pat, “I made a point of listening to them and what I discovered is — it's all a trick. If you have a personality that is attractive, that people like and want to communicate with, well then, the kernel is there. The rest of it is trickery, it's theatre, it's rabbits out of hats, and there's a lot of acting in it.” 

Farmer Mickey Joe Brady called Gerry one morning after burying himself underground to protest against EU farming policy. He spoke through a plastic pipe inserted in the coffin. Food and water were also sent through the pipe. His plan was to create a new world record by staying underground for six months, but it failed by 24 hours after a container of frozen slurry melted and almost drowned him live on air. Brady became a star. The story made the London Independent front page and was covered by Sky News. It never once occurred to anyone that it was a joke. As for the slots featuring three old men in a pub — Shil, Peter and Ned. What on earth were they talking about? It was radio at its cleverest. Was it sustainable? Yes, but only in the hands of Gerry Ryan. 

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Sweeping changes are about to take place at both Radio 1 and Newstalk. It’s difficult not to wonder what Gerry would have made of it all, and whether he could still have been as formidable a player as he was. Cocaine contributed to his downfall, and ultimately his death, which is sad when you consider he had so much left to give. He was only 53 when he died.

“When Gay goes, it all goes, right? It’ll be the end of an era,” he said in 1990. Wrong, Gerry. It ended when you left. In this world of political correctness that replaced yours, your ability to be both woke and whacky is sorely missed. According to RTÉ’s director of audio, Patricia Monahan, keeping the listeners happy is what's most important. If anyone knew the secret to how that works, it was Gerry Ryan. Sadly, he took that secret with him far too early.