Gay Byrne

Gay and his wife adopted 2 daughters, and a few years after the Late Late started, he also undertook a radio programme, called the Gay Byrne Hour, which broadcast in the middle of the morning, Monday to Friday. Again it was light entertainment, music, jokes, lively news stories.. but again it became more serious and became a focus for Irish people to write in and discuss issues. Gay got a letter from a woman listener (most of the audience were stay at home wives) describing her silent marriage, where she and her husband did not speak to each other and communicated via their children. He said how sad it was, and then was inundated with letters describing the same problem, a silent marriage where 2 people had grown to dislike or hate each other but had no prospect of divorce. Another issue, even more tragic, came along in the early 80s where a young girl in a country village gave birth to her baby alone, in a field, and both of them died. Gay again found that he got hundreds of letters about this, about the shame that an illegitimate birth still caused in rural Ireland, and about young girls some under age, had pregnancies and attempted to abort themselves or were forced to give the child up or to bear the child in secret. People who had had nowhere to turn, in the secretive society of Ireland were able to write in and pour out their woes to Gay.. and it sparked off discussion. The Late Late Show, while still being a fun to watch chat show, discussed issues like homosexuality, contraception, AIDS, sexual molestation and rape, women's issues and the like. There were also unusual shows where all the audience were priests. Gay was not really a card carrying liberal.. he tended towards middle class conservatism in many ways but he had an instinct for what people wanted to see and how Ireland was changing... He was also willing to be critical of the Catholic church when it still held a lot of sway over the people.