Gareth O'Callaghan: The Ryan Tubridy scandal was never really about Ryan Tubridy

Gareth O'Callaghan on fame, institutional failure and why Ryan Tubridy paid the price for RTÉ’s collapse in trust

Ryan Tubridy launching 'Tubridy Tonight' in 2004. Two years earlier, he made an extraordinary impact in radio with the arrival of 'The Full Irish' breakfast show on 2FM. File picture: RTÉ

Welcome home, Ryan Tubridy. They say there’s nothing like baring your soul to clear the air.

Tubridy has been doing a lot of soul-baring since his return from London. You’ve got to admire his willpower.

As far back as 2003, RTÉ had started pooling serious resources with the long-range objective of making him its biggest star.

Twenty years later, it bureaucratically destroyed him.

“My feeling when I got into RTÉ was I wanted to swim with the big fish, if I could,” he told Hot Press in a 2004 interview, while basking in the success of his 2FM breakfast show.

His appointment to the flagship two years earlier by radio boss John Clarke was seen as risky, to put it mildly, and was widely criticised within the station. Hot Press went so far as to publish a double-page editorial under the headline ‘Station in turmoil’.

In 2002, faced with poor ratings ahead of Gerry Ryan's show, 2FM's John Clarke took a big gamble, appointing Ryan Tubridy to host 'The Full Irish' breakfast show. Tubridy was a hit, building his audience to 250,000 listeners in three years. File picture: Lensmen 

Tubridy loves books and old black and white movies, and US politics — not your average morning fare on a pop station.

He’s a host, not a disc jockey. Few insiders believed that his quirky style mixed with a sophisticated penchant for juggling lounge classics with post-punk revival — Frank Sinatra meets Franz Ferdinand — could work. But it had to work.

Clarke was faced with disastrous ratings in those crucial hours before Gerry Ryan took over. Gerry wasn’t impressed with the listenership figures he had to work with from when he started at 9am, and he made it known.

The gamble paid off. 

The Full Irish went to air in March 2002. Life was about to change for 28-year-old Tubs. He bravely introduced a style that listeners quickly got hooked on.

Ryan Tubridy on stage in Tralee with Limerick Rose Petula Martyn as he presented The Rose of Tralee in 2003. Picture: Domnick Walsh

With its ambient and interactive delivery, and a leaning towards lifestyle chat, the show became as vital for many as the milk in their coffee first thing every morning.

By the time he returned to Radio 1 to take over Marian Finucane’s morning show in 2005, his 2FM show had over 250,000 listeners, making it the country’s second most popular breakfast show ever after Morning Ireland.

But the modest self-deprecation that became his call sign was a thin disguise for an unswaying determination that came across in the Hot Press interview.

“I didn’t want to be wandering round the shallow end forever,” he said. “Because there are too many corpses there. Too many bodies of people who have come in, shone and then faded away.”

Brave words. I was reminded of them three years ago.

He was on holiday in Clifden in June 2023 when he got a call telling him a scandal had surfaced in RTÉ. All hell was about to break loose and he would soon know about it, he was told.

Ryan Tubridy became front-page news on Friday June 23, 2023, after the RTÉ payments story broke. Picture: Irish Examiner Archive

It was the day his life changed forever. 

By the time he’d managed to catch his breath, he was front-page news.

RTÉ had publicly understated his wages by a total figure of €345,000 between 2017 and 2022. That was their problem, not his. However, he was to be paid a total of €225,000 over three years as part of a deal to top up his salary, which had not been disclosed by the broadcaster.

Two of the three instalments of €75,000, each secretly channelled to him by RTÉ for personal appearances with Renault, were paid via a so-called barter account in Britain. He became a sitting duck.

Ryan Tubridy's appearances in front of the Oireachtas media committee and the Public Accounts Committee scarred him, according to Gareth O'Callaghan. Picture: Oireachtas TV

His hounding at the Oireachtas committee meetings scarred him.

My face burned bright red as I watched him during those broadcasts. It was a public flogging that should never have happened. That said, politicians will never shun an opportunity for publicity.

In August 2023, a report from accountants Grant Thornton vindicated Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly, stating that neither of them had any involvement in orchestrating the deal. Tubridy repaid the €150,000 to RTÉ through his solicitor in August last year.

Tubridy is now 52, chastened by being made the fall guy in a scandal he didn’t cause. He accepts blame for some of it, but his repayment of moneys should have been its conclusion for him. In fact it should have ended with Grant Thornton’s second report, but didn’t.

Ryan Tubridy remained on the front pages through much of 2023, including in the 'Irish Examiner' on Saturday, June 24.

As the sacrificial lamb, he ended up wrongly taking the brunt of RTÉ’s discredit. He was vilified to the point where strangers shouted abuse at him in the streets.

It became clear RTÉ had thrown him under the bus in a pitiful effort at damage limitation. But damage limitation is an admission of defeat. 

When the heat got too much, the resignations started. 

'Tubridy scandal' was really about RTÉ 

The 2024 Mazars report concluded that there were alarming gaps in procedures and controls within RTÉ.

A severe breakdown of communications and trust between executives and the board was the primary cause of the financial scandal. 

By the time the frenzy had passed, Tubridy was left carrying the can as the primary persona non grata. The decision was made to cut him loose. 

By the end of August 2023, his career was over. His fall from grace was seismic — first made to run the gauntlet then run for cover. Saddest of all was the sense that he had been forced into becoming a man in exile, with no choice but to pack up and leave his native country.

It’s a tough cross to bear when you know it’s the patchwork of half-truths and exaggerations you’ll be remembered for.

Ireland is a small place. 

When you present flagship shows on national radio and television, there’s little or no choice where else to go if the wheels come off the cart. The cruelty afforded to him on social media was like nothing I had previously seen.

Presenting 'The Late Late Show' from an empty studio, Ryan Tubridy was one of the broadcasters who helped capture the mood of the nation during hard covid lockdowns. Picture Andres Poveda/RTÉ

He was a beacon of hope during covid, when, from an empty studio in April 2020, he told the Late Late Show audience stuck in their homes, “I know this has been a very hard week for lots of you watching tonight.”

He brought a nation to tears when he paid tribute to four viewers who should have been watching, but had died. It was Tubridy at his finest, his rawest.

I listened to him on Virgin Radio. He played a blinder in a format that never suited him.

His on-air enthusiasm was no match for the homesickness I often heard in his voice.

Ryan Tubridy and Clare Kambamettu on their wedding day in the Abbeyglen Castle Hotel, Galway. Picture: Aoife Herriott

Will he be afforded the chance to return to RTÉ where he first appeared on the children’s show Scratch Saturday in 1989 when he was 16? 

His status might have been lost, but I believe his popularity is back to where it was before the scandal took hold — the public's interest in his recent wedding proved it.

'The system' at RTÉ

RTÉ is a strange mix of talent and establishment. 

Years ago when I worked there, it was known as “the system”. The toxic level of resentment directed at some of the stars was palpable. As Gerry Ryan once told me, the more popular you become, the more you’ll visit the bathroom.

Ryan Tubridy and Graham Norton at Evans of Bantry before going onstage for the final event of the 2025 West Cork Literary Festival. Picture: Darragh Kane

“Why?” I asked. “To take the knives out of your back,” he replied.

Will Tubridy go back to RTÉ? Since the death of Seán Rocks last July, the arts show Arena has been without a permanent presenter.

It’s perfectly pitched for him. But could he ever feel comfortable again working in the place that led to his downfall three years ago?

Ryan Tubridy recording his forthcoming episode in Virgin Media Ireland’s series with Muireann O’Connell, ‘The Assembly Ireland’. Picture: Mattia Pelizzari/Kite/VMTV

Mahatma Ghandi once said “When the ego dies, the soul awakes.” In his recent interviews, Tubridy has been revealing more soul, less ego.

Despite the bruising he has taken, I hope he has kept alive that indefinable quality that makes him who he is. 

While he is very much loved by those who miss him, I get the feeling he’s finally back on the ranch.

Now all he needs is to get back on the horse.