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Why do the Irish give Pat Kenny such a hard time?

24

Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 801 ✭✭✭Beanntraigheach


    If you think the Irish are hard on him you should hear what the Armenians are saying about him!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,814 ✭✭✭harry Bailey esq


    jetsonx wrote: »
    he makes an excellent interviewer who is concise and insightful.

    Great broadcaster, I never really gave him any thought until he went to Newstalk. I tune in once or twice a week now. Irish people don't like other Irish people,simple as that. The fact that his forename, when looked up in a dictionary is common reference to the fecal matter of a cow probably doesn't help the poor f%ker either. He's OK in my book,despite his crap name.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,294 ✭✭✭thee glitz


    Ye, he's much better on the radio.




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,639 ✭✭✭feargale


    Can be extremely snide, but goes ballistic at any little dart at himself. Does anybody remember when Jack O'Connor hit his raw nerve? Well able to dish it out is Mr. Kenny, but not quite so good to take it.

    P.S. And he loves to parade his knowledge.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,059 ✭✭✭✭osarusan


    An example of how the shallow pool of talent at RTE means that anybody who is any good at anything must be given a go at everything else.

    He was and is decent at his radio stuff, but was never any good at the Late Late and allowing people to be at ease and express themselves. It seemed like he always thought he needed to force it out of them. His appalling interview with Pete Doherty was a good example.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 24,745 ✭✭✭✭Tell me how


    Listened to his show this morning. Two topics in particular, one about removal of statues in US and second the mother of s child who was terminally I'll from birth.

    In the first, he was very well informed and really challenged the history lecturer without being rude, on the second I thought he was very empathetic.

    I was thinking then how good he is at his job. Agree he wasn't good on light entertainment on TV but I think he could be good on more current affairs shows such as Prime Time.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 24,745 ✭✭✭✭Tell me how


    You and Gay Byrne, bunch of arseholes.

    Could you name any Irish TV/radio personality you think is good quality?


  • Posts: 5,094 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    elperello wrote: »
    In fairness Gay Byrne was a hard act to follow.

    And thanks be to God for that.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,309 ✭✭✭✭B.A._Baracus


    I think the dislike for Pat Kenny is the whole bollocks of something that is considered as the general consensus but in reality far from it.

    To give an example, so many people online crap on about how bad Mrs Browns Boys is but yet it pulls in great viewing figures on BBC and the live shows do great as well. Yet look online and everyone seems to hate it.

    Kenny did the Late Late for years and his radio show. Some people had to be tuning in and didn't mind him :p


  • Posts: 24,286 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    jetsonx wrote: »
    Why do the Irish give Pat Kenny such a hard time?

    Yes, he does not do light entertainment very well. But aside from that,
    he makes an excellent interviewer who is concise and insightful.

    In truth, Pat isnt the worst of them. However, the fact that a wealthy man claimed squatters rights on his neighbours land just seems so greedy and pathetic.

    I dont quite hate him as he comes out with the odd nugget of sense (stopped clock twice a day and all that) and id say he doesnt take himself too seriously at the back of everything.

    He was overpaid at RTE but they all are and i dont blame them for taking it.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 964 ✭✭✭123shooter


    The mans a prat and his daily obsession with blaming Donald Trump for something/everything is so boring !


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,372 ✭✭✭✭jimmycrackcorm


    He is a good broadcaster, more suited to current affairs than talk shows. But I despise him for his obnoxious attempt to take the land beside him using squatters rights.

    It's not as if he had no money, and I personally would never try to take land that doesn't belong to me so I don't think much of someone who does try. I found it gobsmacking at the time that such a highly paid person, that we paid for without a choice through our tv licence, would stoop so greedily low.


  • Posts: 24,286 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    I think the dislike for Pat Kenny is the whole bollocks of something that is considered as the general consensus but in reality far from it.

    To give an example, so many people online crap on about how bad Mrs Browns Boys is but yet it pulls in great viewing figures on BBC and the live shows do great as well. Yet look online and everyone seems to hate it.

    Kenny did the Late Late for years and his radio show. Some people had to be tuning in :p


    Mrs Browns boys has an older demographic in terms of viewership though. An elderly aunt in England was telling us that the old dears in England rush home from bingo to see it. Most of the critics come from a younger and more 'connected' generation if you like


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,033 ✭✭✭✭Richard Hillman


    We didn't appreciate him at the time. Ireland's greatest ever broadcaster.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,309 ✭✭✭✭B.A._Baracus


    Mrs Browns boys has an older demographic in terms of viewership though. An elderly aunt in England was telling us that the old dears in England rush home from bingo to see it. Most of the critics come from a younger and more 'connected' generation if you like

    You are right.
    Thing is tho, as long as Kenny (or anyone) can pull in decent viewing numbers it doesn't matter.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 346 ✭✭reason vs religion


    He's largely out of the public consciousness now that he's at Newstalk. The remaining negativity derives from a collective cultural memory.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33,779 ✭✭✭✭Princess Consuela Bananahammock


    jetsonx wrote: »
    Why do the Irish give Pat Kenny such a hard time?

    Yes, he does not do light entertainment very well. But aside from that,
    he makes an excellent interviewer who is concise and insightful.

    Kinda answered your own question here.

    The problem is that he epitomises the nepotism within RTE. He should have stayed in political analysis and never taken over the Late Late, but he he got the job because, y'know... it's RTE...

    Everything I don't like is either woke or fascist - possibly both - pick one.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 964 ✭✭✭123shooter


    The remaining negativity derives from a collective cultural memory.

    :eek: .... Is that a disease?


  • Posts: 5,094 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    feargale wrote: »
    Can be extremely snide, but goes ballistic at any little dart at himself. Does anybody remember when Jack O'Connor hit his raw nerve? Well able to dish it out is Mr. Kenny, but not quite so good to take it.

    Ah Jack O'Connor and his trophy salary and trophy SIPTU slush funds and trophy expenses and trophy trips to New York and trophy backroom deals with the government for selling out his union membership. Yeah, I remember that alright. Trying to put himself forward as one of the workers by attacking the likes of Kenny that night in 2009 when everything about O'Connor himself and his position has long since reeked of establishment money and establishment power.

    Within a year of O'Connor's "trophy home" attack on Kenny, it was revealed that his SIPTU union had received millions of euro off the record in a slush fund. And it got better:

    SIPTU hid information about €5m slush fund
    THE country's largest trade union has been accused of deliberately withholding information from the HSE about a taxpayer-funded multimillion-euro "slush fund" that was partly used to pay for trips abroad.

    HSE officials told the Dail Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday they had sought information from SIPTU on the operation of the €5m fund, but were not being given details to which the union had access.
    Committee chairman John McGuinness warned that he could use the Compellability Act to bring in officials to answer questions on the SIPTU National Health and Local Authority Levy Fund.

    Even though the account bears the SIPTU name, the union has always denied having authorised it.
    Matt Merrigan, a SIPTU health division organiser, and shop steward Jack Kelly set up the account. It was intended to upskill and assist lower-grade workers in the health services, mainly through the HSE 'Skill' training programme.
    However, around 14pc of the fund was spent on foreign travel and subsistence for public-sector managers, union representatives and their spouses or partners.

    Mr McGuinness said he would ask SIPTU, Mr Merrigan, Mr Kelly and HSE official Alan Smith to come before the PAC voluntarily. However, if they did not do so, he could use the Act to force them to give evidence or hand over papers.
    The PAC discussed the fund, which paid for 40 trips abroad for union, HSE and Department of Health officials, as well as covering hotel and restaurant bills.

    The committee heard that Mr Smith, who ran the 'Skill' programme in the HSE, went on almost all of the trips abroad.

    Labour TD Derek Nolan said €1.1m was still unaccounted for. Fine Gael TD Simon Harris described the account as a "slush fund".

    HSE internal auditor Dr Geraldine Smith said she had expected "detailed" records and "income and expenditure accounts" when she examined SIPTU documents but they were not there.
    Independent TD Shane Ross asked if the union was withholding information. Dr Smith replied: "Possibly, yes".

    Rank hypocrisy from O'Connor after his attacks on the privilege of Kenny and the like.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,372 ✭✭✭✭branie2


    He started off as a singer on a children's tv show


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,462 ✭✭✭✭WoollyRedHat


    Could you name any Irish TV/radio personality you think is good quality?

    Does Dustin the Turkey count?

    Sean Mocrief is good. Mike Murphy back in the day too. Any of the late night tv presenters that grace our screens are awful. Compare RT/ Darcy etc. to likes of Norton and the difference is night and day.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,796 ✭✭✭KungPao


    Another vote for Jerry Seinfield. Unforgivable.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 964 ✭✭✭123shooter



    Sean Mocrief is good. .

    Nah.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 869 ✭✭✭mikeybrennan


    Norton isn't that great either


  • Posts: 745 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    I really don't understand it, he's the best broadcaster in the country. I think a lot of the time when people say the don't like him it's not because they actually feel/think that, but because they believe they are supposed to not like him because they have heard others say they don't like him.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,462 ✭✭✭✭WoollyRedHat


    Norton isn't that great either

    Better than the dross we serve up. Least he can hold an audience.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18 marielovesstea


    Has anyone mentioned Nicky Byrne yet? My god, I listened to the show today by accident for all of 5 minutes and it is just the absolute worst, god he is just plain awful. Paid 200k a year to talk and play absolute drivvle. Its mostly ads too. I feel sorry for Jenny Green, she basically hosts the show for him and I'm guessing she gets paid a lot less than him.

    off topic but throw Donal Skehan in there too.. Jesus. Both of them fooling rte for years!!!

    Pat Kenny isnt the worst. Bland but not the worst.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,069 ✭✭✭✭LordSutch


    jetsonx wrote: »
    Why do the Irish give Pat Kenny such a hard time?.

    Atomic expert; The Korean bomb is X megatons in size and is capable of killing X amount of people in a given radius...

    Pat Kenny; So what you mean is ...

    Pat then speaks for 70% of the interview telling the expert how the bomb works, and exactly what its impact will be. Always the expert on every subject, one wonders why he even has guests?

    Pats use of 'ultra precise' language is also annoying ... the minutiae of which is advisedly precisely interpreted & parsed literally through a spherical elliptical visionary lens, thus proverbially providing luminary ruminations a la Moderno hyberno don't you know aboutery!

    In other words he talks a load of bolockx.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,419 ✭✭✭Charles Babbage


    LordSutch wrote: »

    Pat then speaks for 70% of the interview telling the expert how the bomb works, and exactly what its impact will be. Always the expert on every subject, one wonders why he even has guests?

    Because this discussion is informative for those of us that are not entirely au fait with different types of nuclear device! Pat may be well informed, but the expert will correct him if he hasn't the details in order. It is a pleasant change from some interviewers that ask stupid questions because they haven't a clue.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 18,252 ✭✭✭✭uck51js9zml2yt


    I like him. His ability to deal with the minutea is what makes him s good investigative reporter.


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