Late Late Show 60th anniversary: Charlie Bird celebrates ‘the show that shaped Ireland’

Sixty years of the Late Late Show (RTÉ One, Friday) is a milestone – not just in Irish broadcasting but in the social history of Ireland. Annie Murphy talking about her relationship with Eamonn Casey. Terry Keane dropping the bombshell on her affair with Charles Haughey. Pádraig Flynn bemoaning the challenges of maintaining three residences. With Gay Byrne quietly serving as straight-man, interrogator and hang-man, these flashpoints and others are scorched into the collective consciousness of several generations.

That was then, of course, and this anniversary edition, hosted by Ryan Tubridy, could be considered a reminder of how inessential the Late Late has become. But that would be to take a needlessly negative view and, as celebrations go, the episode is generally good value.

“We are gathered here tonight to celebrate a celestial milestone,” says Tubridy in his opening monologue. “The occasion of the Late Late reaching 60 years on air … Before there was TikTok, before there were a million on-demand streaming services there was one … for everyone in the audience.”

“Mother Theresa, Audrey Hepburn, Brenda Fricker, Katie Taylor,” he continues, reeling off some of the guests to have graced the Late Late across the decades before paying tribute to “our founding father, Gay Byrne”.

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This is followed by video congratulations from various luminaries, including comedian Peter Kay and actor Michael Fassbender, who appears to be perched at the top of a tree somewhere whilst trying out his American accent.

There is a nicely diverse range of guests. Oscar-nominated Kerry actress Jessie Buckley and former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler (who has family from Dun Laoghaire) discuss their new musical project. Buckley also speaks about attending the recent Met Ball in New York with a Charlie Chaplin-style moustache painted on – it was a spur of the moment decision as she was about to walk out the door. And about receiving an Oscar nomination for the Lost Daughter.

“I got a shock,” she says. “I had zero expectations. It’s a mad thing.”

Tubridy also interviews champion boxers Amy Broadhurst and Lisa O’Rourke. And there is an expletive-filled chat with Christy Dignam of Aslan who blurts out a s*** and then, for good measure and again by accident, drops an F-bomb. Tubridy smiles, having no alternative.

Music has always been part of the Late Late Show formula, from early appearances by U2 to the existential horror of that 1993 Boyzone appearance, featuring too many denim dungarees and not enough coordinated dancing. This week, there is a comedic turn by Mario Rosenstock impersonating Christy Moore (“Long ago, back in the day, the Late Late Show, was a man called Gay…”). And an appearance by Dermot Kennedy whose emotive singing is tipped over the edge slightly by orchestral accompaniment (if there is one thing Kennedy’s music does not require it is further ornamentation).

The emotional centre point of the broadcast is an interview with Charlie Bird and his wife Claire Mould. Bird has lost the power of speech as a result of motor neurone disease and communicates with a voice cloning machine operated by a tablet.

“In my opinion it has helped shape modern Ireland … The Late Late Show was the programme most politicians and newsmakers wanted to be on,” he says via the device. “P. Flynn, his salary, the cost of keeping three houses. The night Terry Keane was on with Gay and dropped the bombshell about her affair with Charlie Haughey.”

Nobody would pretend that the Late Late Show occupies the same place in the national psyche that it did when Gay Byrne hosted (though it perhaps came close when historian Catherine Corless came on to discuss the Tuam Mother and Baby Home Scandal in 2021 – she is back tonight to pay tribute to Tubridy for helping her through a difficult interview).

Ireland during the Gay Byrne era was a strange, closed-off place. And as it marks six decades the best compliment that can be paid the Late Late is that, in helping throw back the shutters of a emotionally cloistered nation, it did its bit to make Ireland just another country – and the Late Late just another chat show.