Gay Byrne

Gabriel Mary "Gay" Byrne (5 August 1934 – 4 November 2019) was an Irish presenter and host of radio and television. His most notable role was first host of '' The Late Late Show'' over a 37-year period spanning 1962 until 1999. ''The Late Late Show'' is the world's second longest-running chat show. He was affectionately known as "Uncle Gay", "Gaybo" or "Uncle Gaybo". His time working in Britain with Granada Television saw him become the first person to introduce The Beatles on-screen, and Byrne was later the first to introduce Boyzone on screen in 1993.

From 1973 until 1998, Byrne presented ''The Gay Byrne Hour'' – later ''The Gay Byrne Show'' when it expanded to two hours – on RTÉ Radio 1 each weekday morning. After retiring from his long-running radio and television shows, Byrne presented several other programmes, including ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'', '' The Meaning of Life'' and '' For One Night Only'' on RTÉ One and ''Sunday Serenade''/''Sunday with Gay Byrne'' on RTÉ lyric fm. In 2006, he was elected Chairman of Ireland's Road Safety Authority. In his retirement he was described as the "Elder Lemon of Irish broadcasting".

In 2010, ''The Irish Times'' said Byrne was "unquestionably the most influential radio and television man in the history of the Irish State". He was approached to run in the 2011 Irish presidential election but declined to run, despite topping early opinion polls.

Early life

Byrne was the son of Edward Byrne, who joined the Irish Volunteers in 1912. In 1913, Edward Byrne enlisted as a professional trooper with the British Army's 19th (Queen Alexandra's Own Royal) Hussars cavalry regiment, given a background as a horseman from his father's employment by the Earl of Meath as a coachman in County Wicklow. On the outbreak of World War I he was mobilized and went with his unit to the Western Front, where he took part in heavy fighting in the Ypres Salient and at the Battle of the Somme. He was discharged from the British Army at the war's end in 1919. He later took part in the Irish War of Independence.Byrne, ''The Time of My Life'', p. 5

In the early 1920s, Edward Byrne was employed by Guinness' St. James's Gate Brewery, where he worked for most of the rest of his life on the barges that operated on the River Liffey, transporting wooden casks from St. James's Gate Brewery to sea ships at the North Wall in Dublin. Byrne's father, Edward, married his mother, Annie, in 1917, when briefly home on leave from the war. The two had met near Bray just before the war began. Both of them were from County Wicklow. His siblings were Ray, Al, Ernest and Mary; all but Mary predeceased him.

Byrne was born on 5 August 1934 and grew up in The Liberties in Dublin. He first lived with his family at 17 Rialto Street, Rialto, Dublin, before his parents moved to 124 (later renumbered 512) South Circular Road, Dublin, in 1944. Byrne's mother, Annie, died in late 1964.

Byrne attended Rialto National School (since closed) and a number of other schools for short periods. Subsequently, he was educated by the Irish Christian Brothers at Synge Street CBS. He and two classmates bought a jazz record when Byrne was fourteen years old in January 1948, at a time when Radio Éireann refused to play it because of its "licentious" content. In December 2009, Byrne returned to his old primary school on Synge Street to launch an online children's book club, and read an extract from Marita Conlon-McKenna's storybook '' In Deep Dark Wood''. In 2009, whilst celebrating the 250th anniversary of Guinness, he revealed that he had once tried unsuccessfully to earn a job in the brewery near his childhood home.

When he was young, Byrne was inspired by the broadcaster Eamonn Andrews, who had a successful career on British television, and "wanted to be what he was". Andrews was friendly with Byrne's eldest brother. In 1958, he moved over to broadcasting when he became a presenter on Radio Éireann. He also worked with Granada Television and the BBC
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