Tributes have been paid to former RTÉ and Sunday Tribune journalist Gerald Barry (63) who died in a Dublin hospital today following a long illness.
Best-known for his interviews with leading politicians on This Week, the Sunday current affairs programme on RTÉ Radio One, Mr Barry first joined the station in 1970.
It was in an interview with Barry that Garret FitzGerald launched his constitutional crusade for a more liberal society, and the full transcript of his in-depth interview with Charles Haughey on the latest Fianna Fáil leadership heave was published in The Irish Times on February 7th, 1983.
He reported from Argentina during the Falklands/Malvinas conflict. In 1983 he left RTÉ to become deputy editor of the Sunday Tribune where he remained until 1995 when he returned to radio as editor and presenter of This Week. He retired in January 2010.
Managing Director of RTÉ News, Ed Mulhall said: “Gerald was a superb journalist with a razor-sharp mind, a brilliant memory and a forensic attention to detail, which, combined with his broadcasting skills, led to many ground-breaking interviews over the 40 years we were privileged to have him as a colleague and a friend in the RTÉ Newsroom.”
Chairman of the RTÉ Authority, Tom Savage said: “He was respected by politicians from every party as a man of impregnable fairness and thoroughness. Colleagues sought advice from him, and were treated as if they were doing him the honour. Few men have meant so much to friends and to their profession.”
Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore said in a statement: “I learned with great sadness of the death of the distinguished journalist, Gerald Barry.
“Gerry Barry was one of the outstanding journalists of recent decades with a formidable record in both the print and the broadcast media.”
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said: “Gerald Barry was one of those who first inspired my interest in politics. His interviews were always insightful and informative and he succeeded in drawing the best from his subjects.
“In making information accessible and his interviews so engaging, Gerald made a very significant contribution to Irish public life.”
Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams TD said: ”Gerald Barry’s distinctive voice and incisive and probing interview style were sadly missing during the recent election campaign.
“Gerald was a thoughtful and fair journalist and broadcaster. His death is a deep loss to the world of journalism.”
Former RTÉ political correspondent and Government press secretary Seán Duignan paid tribute to Barry’s “forensic” approach to interviewing. He added that, as a colleague, “Gerry Barry was universally-loved.”