Gerry Ryan is 10 years dead

Long_Wave

One of the greatest Irish men of living memory died 10 years ago this month, how time flies

Lollipops23

You mean world's biggest hypocrite dies of massive coronary caused by years of coke abuse died 10 years ago.

the beer revolu

Long_Wave wrote: »

One of the greatest Irish men of living memory died 10 years ago this month, how time flies

I've nothing against Gerry Ryan...... but how in fcuks name was he "one of the greatest Irish men of living memory"?
Surely this is a wind up.

Gerry was an affible talk radio host and a poor, unsuccessful TV host. Nice fella, by all accounts, but what did he do to deserve your accolades?

Hangdogroad

Was anyone else here shown that anti drugs video he did in the early 90s in secondary school?

RobertKK

Long_Wave wrote: »

One of the greatest Irish men of living memory died 10 years ago this month, how time flies

For me the greatest in living memory was my father, and for most people the greatest Irish men for them is someone they know and not Gerry Ryan.
Let's be real about it.

The Nal

One of the greatest radio men we've ever had.

893bet

Jesus the 10 years ****ing flew.

If asked I would have said he is dead 3 or 4 years.

893bet

Lollipops23 wrote: »

You mean world's biggest hypocrite dies of massive coronary caused by years of coke abuse died 10 years ago.

Oooooh shock edgy first reply! Hope it gets the thanks you hope for to make up for being a horrible miserable cynic.

chicorytip

I thought the furore surrounding his use of cocaine was unfair on his family and somewhat unjustified and hypocritical. Cocaine use is common enough in broadcasting, journalism and music circles, even in RTE. Ryan never portrayed himself as a paragon of virtue in regard to his own lifestyle. Gareth O' Callaghan, on the other hand, is a preachy, self-righteous, pompous little p---k.

OU812

Whatever you think about him, Radio has not been able to replace him.

jonnny68

Long_Wave wrote: »

One of the greatest Irish men of living memory died 10 years ago this month, how time flies

how so?

he was just someone on TV and radio who preached about anti drugs but was a raging coke head himself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVWtLx8ax9k

no loss for me personally.

The Nal

chicorytip wrote: »

I thought the furore surrounding his use of cocaine was unfair on his family and somewhat unjustified and hypocritical.

Hmm dunno. I was a massive fan of G Ryan but it being an open secret that himself and others were caning the bronson for years in a tax payer funded institution was a big story and deserved the attention it got. Particularly after RTE covered it up.

Its a ****e drug anyway.

Trigger Happy

He was so great and irish man that he refused to take a 10% paycut in 2009.
And that show Ryantown was desperate.

KungPao

He was no Joe Duffy!

Podge201

What time is mass on at?

the dark phantom

He was his own man which particularly in the 80's was unique in Ireland. He was leader never a follower.

topper75

The hypocrit stuff didn't begin with the drug taking. It was always there.

The first section of his morning show was musing over newspaper headlines (anyone can do this but he was paid big money somehow). I recall one day where he mumbled his way through an article about the price of bread going up and he let out this despondent sigh at the end as though this was a problem for everyone and he was in it with us.

That is the rule of all the RTÉ bigbucks charlatans - pretend you're in it with the rest of them, and then charge handsomely for it.

Ryan might by dead but there are plenty of his likes still around.

Better Than Christ

Trigger Happy wrote: »

He was so great and irish man that he refused to take a 10% paycut in 2009.

In fairness, he couldn't afford to. Not with his lavish lifestyle anyway. I wanna tell you something, try it some time, etc. A lot is made of his cocaine use (and to be fair, his handkerchief probably had a street value of a grand), but every other aspect of his life was based around self-indulgence.

blueser

Long_Wave wrote: »

One of the greatest Irish men of living memory died 10 years ago this month, how time flies

Behave. I thought wumming/trolling was against the rules.

The Nal

topper75 wrote: »

The first section of his morning show was musing over newspaper headlines (anyone can do this but he was paid big money somehow). I recall one day where he mumbled his way through an article about the price of bread going up and he let out this despondent sigh at the end as though this was a problem for everyone and he was in it with us.

I love how he pissed so many people off with trivial stuff like this. Getting upset because he talked about bread. He was so marmite.

Gerry doing the morning papers shtick (usually hungover and always on the fly) was the best part of any morning. Sipping his tea into the mic, getting "Brenda down there", the immature double entendres etc.

After Pavorotti died he played clips of Nessun Dorma all morning at random intervals. Like in the middle of guest speaking. Oh, and the vibrator story. Great stuff.

Great entertainment.

Your Face

I cant say Id be too bothered whether he was a hypocrite or not.

I remember the Jerry Ryan morning show and it was good but noticeably dropped off in quality as the years progressed. Probably as his substance abuse got worse.

storker

Better Than Christ wrote: »

In fairness, he couldn't afford to. Not with his lavish lifestyle anyway. I wanna tell you something, try it some time, etc. A lot is made of his cocaine use (and to be fair, his handkerchief probably had a street value of a grand), but every other aspect of his life was based around self-indulgence.

Including his interviewing.

Immortal Starlight

A stupid man who didn’t appreciate what he had and ended up throwing everything including his life away.

The Nal

I met him out one night and he was fairly rough and still holding up the bar when I left at 3am. Was surprised to hear him sounding fresh as a daisy on the radio 6 hours later.

topper75

The Nal wrote: »

Getting upset because he talked about bread. He was so marmite.

I fear you missed the point. I'm not picking on him for talking about bread. He sighed about the bread going up in price as though it were a problem for him.

The only other alternative to that cynical take was that he was sighing on our behalf as it were or in some kind of remote sympathy. Think what you will of that.

Effects

topper75 wrote: »

I fear you missed the point. I'm not picking on him for talking about bread. He sighed about the bread going up in price as though it were a problem for him.

You’d be moaning no matter what way he reported it.

The Nal

topper75 wrote: »

I fear you missed the point. I'm not picking on him for talking about bread. He sighed about the bread going up in price as though it were a problem for him.

The only other alternative to that cynical take was that he was sighing on our behalf as it were or in some kind of remote sympathy. Think what you will of that.

Well he doesn't have to be in a dole queue to realise that the price of bread impacts some people. I don't think that made him a fake or whatever if thats what you're saying? It was his job to report on this stuff. Like Graham Norton saying "we" when doing the Eurovision for the UK. Being paid by the BBC.

branie2

A great man in my opinion

Muahahaha

Better Than Christ wrote: »

In fairness, he couldn't afford to. Not with his lavish lifestyle anyway. I wanna tell you something, try it some time, etc. A lot is made of his cocaine use (and to be fair, his handkerchief probably had a street value of a grand), but every other aspect of his life was based around self-indulgence.

I always think his trajectory closely followed the events of the Celtic Tiger. Up until about 2003/4 he was alright but then there was a definite change in him during the boom. His wages skyrocketed up to almost 700k a year, he started dressing in bankers pin stripe suits with pink shirts and he put on a load of weight. It was at that time his Sunday piss ups in the Four Seasons hotel became legendary and of course we now know too that he was horsing the coke into himself at the same time. To me his personality definitely changed during those years and he definitely became more brash.

Then when the bust happened his sense of entitlement came to the fore when he was shooting his mouth off about not taking a pay cut while the economy was collapsing all around us.

Fr_Dougal

OU812 wrote: »

Whatever you think about him, Radio has not been able to replace him.

Lottie is twice the man he was.

Zebra3

The Nal wrote: »

Gerry doing the morning papers shtick (usually hungover and always on the fly) was the best part of any morning.

Your mornings must have been utterly horrific.

Hangdogroad

Hangdogroad wrote: »

Was anyone else here shown that anti drugs video he did in the early 90s in secondary school?

You mean this one?

Harry Palmr

2FM RIP

arcticmonkeys

1:08 Gerry asking the important questions lol. 2FM's never been the same for better or worse some will argue.

CoBo55

Lollipops23 wrote: »

You mean world's biggest hypocrite dies of massive coronary caused by years of coke abuse died 10 years ago.

Yea hay:pac: Has to be a boards record:mad:

He was great at one time but was well past his best at the end. I felt sorry for his poor girlfriend. She was sidelined by his family, who loved him so much that he died alone with poor Melanie finding his body.

The Nal

arcticmonkeys wrote: »

1:08 Gerry asking the important questions lol. 2FM's never been the same for better or worse some will argue.

11.30 "Maybe we should give Stan a ring?... We're going to give Stan a ring".

Chalk McHugh

topper75 wrote: »

I fear you missed the point. I'm not picking on him for talking about bread. He sighed about the bread going up in price as though it were a problem for him.

The only other alternative to that cynical take was that he was sighing on our behalf as it were or in some kind of remote sympathy. Think what you will of that.

You remember Gerry sighing about the price of bread? Just to be sure was it a slice pan, batched or perhaps even brown bread he was talking about that fateful morning over 10 years ago?

notsoyoungwan

I think he epitomized the word ‘vulgar’

Deebles McBeebles

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

Lottie is twice the man he was.

She's about 1/50th the radio DJ though.

KaneToad

I heard his radio show a few times. I wasn't a fan of it. His TV work wasn't to my taste either. I never understood his popularity. A sad and premature death for his family & friends.

Xertz

To be fair to Gerry Ryan and his legacy, I think you need to look at the earlier years of his radio show. It was very fundamental in shaking Ireland out of deep, deep conservatism in the back in the late 80s and into the early and mid 1990s.
Topics were discussed, with total irreverence to the social mores that dominated Ireland at the time, with a lot of humour and a whole lot of intelligence too and it drove debate, brought people out of various dark corners and was a hugely useful forum.

He was a truly great radio broadcaster and by all accounts I've ever heard, a very decent colleague to many over the years too and very down to earth, despite the profile. Unfortunately, like many a celeb before him and probably many after him, he went off the rails towards the end of his life and let's face it, Ireland's not exactly immune from substance abuse issues be they drugs or alcohol. I think we can become rather holier than thou on these issues and it's a big part of why we don't face them down as a society too.

However, I think you have to see him in context and across the full span of the Gerry Ryan Radio Show. He did have a big impact on Ireland over those years and in many ways that show was one of the key places where post-conservative Ireland emerged. It was the 'auld wans' (and I remember many of them) tuning in saying "Oh he's a disgrace" while listening to items about topics that were previously totally taboo mixed with solidly entraining radio. He also wasn't a shock jock in the modern sense, he had the intellect to really tease out topics and often dealt with very serious issues in a nuanced, caring and very decent way, very much in the tradition of Irish radio broadcasting going back over the years.

To me, Gerry Ryan is definitely a legendary Irish broadcaster and I think you just have to see the positives with the negatives and the person for who he was, flaws and all.

I find the whole holier-than-thou thing, where people are written off because of something like a drug issue or whatever else is just a load of moralising b/s. People have flaws, but they're not exclusively defined by them. It's important to be able to see the whole person and their whole career in context - that's how we actually learn and that's what life is like in general. It's rarely perfect.

_Brian

Last few years of his broadcasting was car crash stuff. Lack of interest and no concentration on the job, probably drug related.

It’s sad he died. But at the time of his passing he was riding on past glory and wasn’t fit for mainstream media.

I doubt we need a thread next year saying he’s 11 years dead, enough is enough.

Xertz

I don't think TV was ever his medium, but he was decent on the radio probably from 1988-mid-1990s. He was very much a reflection of the Celtic Tiger in this later days and I think the show was coasting along and probably would have ended up becoming annoying and fizzling out.

However, I still think you have to just see the guy and his career in context. It was a sad end to someone who had a lot of talent and really put it to use back in the day.

Seamai

Lollipops23 wrote: »

You mean world's biggest hypocrite dies of massive coronary caused by years of coke abuse died 10 years ago.

I can remember listening to his show one morning in work, a year or two before he died when a woman called in from inner city Dublin beside herself as she was witnessing a drug addict who was injected into his groin in full public view. Ryan went into one of his "Scum of the earth, lock them up and throw away the key, prison is too good for them" rants.
What a hypocrite.

Hangdogroad

[Deleted User] wrote: »

You mean this one?

Yes. That's a clip from it, it mostly consisted of laughable dramatised scenes interspersed with various eejits rapping.

Xertz

To be honest, a drug addict injecting themselves in the groin in public is more a sign of absolutely horrendous late stages of addiction, including a total lack of self-awareness and just a terribly sad state for anyone to be in. They're just desperately sick and addicted and it's those up the line who are selling that stuff that need to be tackled.

I generally find anyone calling anyone like that 'scum of the earth' is not getting the point and there is definitely a 'socially acceptable' side of the drug abuse problem in Ireland (and elsewhere) that tends to glamourise certain drugs - notably cocaine, and then divorce itself from the reality of the whole supply chain and also the horrendous side of it like heroin and from the gangland crime that the whole supply chain is driving.

However, I think it's something that is societal and as long as there are people willing to turn a blind eye as they snort a line of whatever it is, the drug problems will keep going on. They're all sad addicts, just some of them can keep a facade on it while others can't. That's the sad reality of it - it destroys lives and careers be they a successful media person who goes off the rails, or some guy who is mainlining stuff in a bus shelter. It's ultimately different shades of the same screwed up problem.

B.A._Baracus

For the life me I can't remember the year (but narrowed it down to 2005-2009 and I was walking out of the point depot and I see some guy in a suit. So as I walk past I am going to myself "where do I know that chap from? I know him" Then it hits me... "Oh wait it's Gerry Ryan :pac: "

I imagine he must have got that all the time. Ie, "here's another wan*er trying to remember where he knows me from again" :pac:

branie2

Lottie should bring the Ryan Line back

C__MC

A lifestyle based on the economic success of the Celtic tiger

In saying that his death finished 2fm

Zascar

I remember how someones posted here that their mate put him in an ambulance, so we knew but the family etc didn't.

Can't believe that's 10 years ago. Fun times.