You might be surprised to hear that Gay Byrne is actually quite disliked by a certain class of journalist - usually the right-on, the hip, the cool - who think that he takes a patronising tone to women, to the working class, to the poor, etc., to whom he should be showing a more ideologically sound and seriously caring approach, sort of on the lines of A Beggar's Oprah.
What those few critics either do not know, cannot see, or choose to ignore, is that Gay Byrne is a fiercely moral man. There is no more rigorous interrogator of personal honesty than the radio microphone, no more ruthless exposer of the fraud, the humbug, the deceiver. Gay Byrne has the hearts of the Irish people because in those hearts they know he is not morally feckless. He tells no lies; does not express feelings which he does not feel; misleads nobody; and most of all, is what he is, warts and all.
Great virtue
Being what you are, endlessly, day after day, is usually not merely wearing on the spirit, but wearing on the audience too. No ordinary soul can, morning after morning, talk to the plain people of Ireland at a serious level without one or other losing interest sooner rather than later. Yes, yes, it requires great powers of inventiveness, versatility, and energy: but these are relatively commonplace commodities. What makes Gay Byrne a great broadcaster is his simplicity.
Simplicity is one of the greatest and most elusive of virtues. Like mercury, it escapes those who enthusiastically try to capture it, for simplicity is complex. It is not stupidity, it is not narrowness, it is not ignorance. It is harmony between intellect and the heart, the mind and the emotions, conscience and desire.
Simplicity results when the normally lopsided energies of human nature achieve an equilibrium and remain locked in balance.
Gay Byrne is simple in that sense. All the complexities of nature seem to mesh within him, and he transmits a sense of ease; not of complacency, not smugness, not self-contentment, which are qualities which will kill a broadcaster more quickly than a claw-hammer between the eyes. Ease of being, and simplicity of thought and emotion reassure the listeners; they are not being misled. What you hear is what you get: no falsehood, no artifice, no deceit, no showiness.
Great broadcasters are rare, just like great goalkeepers are rare, and for the same reason. For each, astonishing simplicity and unwavering integrity are the key. Those qualities do not fade with age: that is why both species have careers which last decades. A broadcasting station which doesn't have one great broadcaster is in trouble; and a football team without a good goalkeeper wins no medals. And between the posts for the past quarter-of-a-century on RTE Radio 1 has been Gay Byrne.
Transparent emotions
It is his honesty, his transparency, his lack of a hidden agenda which have enabled Gay Byrne to tackle the issues he has tackled, for it was clear that his only motive was his own insatiable appetite for honesty. It was this transparency of emotion during his now-famous interview with Gerry Adams which was attacked by the witless, right-on school of hey man, I'm so kyool.
For such fools would not recognise that the great thing about Gay Byrne is that he can't feign affection and didn't even try - and rightly. In times of conflict, false emotions are the road to certain tears, for the peace they bring is a phoney peace without base beneath or principles to build upon. Would Gerry Adams have been better or wiser, and would peace have been the closer, if Gay had fawned all over him? What would Gerry Adams have learned about the feelings of the plain people of Ireland in the face of such worthless ingratiation?
We know from his absences from the airwaves, both on radio and television, that Gay is simply irreplaceable. Nobody comes near him, either in the quality of his presentation, his humour, his self-mockery, his sympathy and his genuine, indeed Olympian modesty. It is that last quality which has been shield and armour for his simplicity, which might otherwise have been overwhelmed by both the national adulation and the isolation that have been his portion for almost his entire adult life.
Public comment
No walking down Grafton Street; no quiet dinners with his beloved wife Kathleen; no popping down to the supermarket for a bottle of wine. His every move is a matter for public record and public comment. He cannot pick up a copy of Play- boy at a newsagent or pop into the cinema to see a movie with sex in it or go to Lansdowne Road for an international match. The price he has paid for his broadcasting career would be for most us absolutely unpayable; and politicians who have spent their wretched lives dissembling and deceiving and who now query his salary might reflect that whatever Gay Byrne earns, he deserves twice as much.
It is perhaps too soon to grasp the importance of Gay Byrne in public life in Ireland, but I am confident that when historians look back on independent Ireland in the 20th century, they will see two epochs, each 40 years or so long. In the first epoch, the towering figure was Eamon de Valera. In the second it was Gay Byrne; and of the two, the latter was the finer man by far.