No person in Irish society could escape reach of Bill O’Herlihy

Last year, when I met Bill O’Herlihy for the first and only time just days before his last broadcast anchoring the RTÉ football panel, he made one of those characteristic self-depreciating comments as we were finishing up.

He’d been asked about his plans for the future. His wish was to present some non-sport, interview-based programmes, along the lines of Miriam’s summer Saturday nights show, or Gaybo’s Meaning of Life. He didn’t see it happening though.

“There’s a hell of a difference between how entertainment would be viewed by RTÉ and how sport would be viewed [by them],” he chuckled lightly. “And there’s a hell of a difference between an A-list act like Gay and someone like me.” Yet short of when Byrne himself one day appears at the pearly gates and gets to utter a line he’s surely rehearsed well at this stage, has or will there be anything like the flood of glowing epitaphs for an Irish broadcaster like there has been for O’Herlihy?