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PB May-June 2023 May-June 2023 47
I
appeared as a guest on the Late Late Show
twice. The first time was around 1999 to
talk about planning corruption. However,
apart from an introduction from the great
Gay Byrne in which he surprisingly went
on about how “good looking” I was, I made no
impact. I did mind you get a girlfriend out of it.
I had, after all, looked great. In the Green Room
Albert Reynolds told me he had never trusted
Bertie Ahern. He was silent on my looks though
I knew he was eyeing. Gay Byrne told me to
watch out for a particular developer who I better
not mention and also that he couldn’t
understand why I’d oered a reward to uncover
planning corruption which was precisely what
I’d been on to explain.
Four years later, flushed with my earlier
mediocrity, I went on it again this time under Pat
Kenny to talk about An Taisce’s campaign to
oppose one-o housing. I’d said that Eamon
O’Cuív was pretending to be a gobshite for
favouring development all over the countryside.
Pat didn’t like that. Opting against joshing
bonhomie and a rollocking song, I announced
on-air that An Taisce would oppose all one-o
housing if it wasn’t for farming or other land-
based activities. As usual the thing was a set-up
with two land-owners moaning at me that they’d
been thwarted in their attempts to build, even
though An Taisce had nothing to do with it, and
I’d been solemnly assured my involvement
would be confined to a cerebral debate with
O’Cuív. At the time one-o housing constituted
70% of development in many rural counties and
only 5% of it was ever getting turned down.
The country favoured the emotional
landowners and I was taken out. Phoenix
Magazine ran a piece wondering whether I was
destroying rural Ireland though actually the
policy was to stop the overflow of Dublin and
encourage people to live in rural towns and
village. The Department of the Environment
advised me against being so oppositionalist on
one-o housing even though it was their own
policy to do just that.
When Pat left, I’d always hoped to get on Ryan
Tubridy’s Late Late Show to see whether I could
do better than making no impact or being
destroyed but RTÉ and Ryan have no interest in
me and this magazine has been mean to him
about his consumerism and lack of interest in
the environment
According to the Irish Sun, where I get all my
betting info, the favourite Claire Byrne is so red-
hot a favourite that betting has now been
suspended. She was at 1/3, ahead of Sarah
McInerney at 3/1 and people called Jennifer
Zamparelli and Baz Ashmawy further down the
list.
I like the idea of a programme that represents
the Irish Zeitgeist, that takes risks, generates
controversies and is always progressive as well
as entertaining. Byrne’s Late Late Show roughly
speaking filled that role even if he was no
radical. Every week there was a controversy just
as under Pat Kenny every week there was an
embarrassment and under Ryan Tubridy every
week there was no controversy.
Anyway Claire Byrne will disappoint even
worse than Kenny because she is dry. Sarah
McInerney would be feisty and modern but is
untested beyond politics (and in an earlier life,
tbf, gossip), Zamparelli and Ashmawy might be
trivial and showbizzy. Miriam would not have
excited.
For me the best options are Virgin Media’s
Claire Brock, an intrepid interviewer who always
seems to have more in elegant reserve and who
has a glint in her eye suggesting she has more
The late Late Late
It needs someone
who’ll challenge,
and hit the Zeitgeist,
ideally a comedian,
in particular Oliver
Callan
By Michael Smith
to her life than the gombeen electoral cycle.
Like McInerney she’d be a risk though, since
she’s untested.
However, clearly the best candidate would be
Oliver Callan: comedian, impersonator, Tubridy
radio stand-in. He has serious political views
ventilated in informed columns in the Irish Sun
and more recently the Irish Times; and of course
in the best programme broadcast on Irish media,
Callan’s Kicks on RTÉ Radio 1. He is subversive
enough to laugh at RTÉ on their own airwaves,
sharp and acutely politically intelligent. He
comes from the stock of stand-up comedians
and, as proved by Volodomar Zelenskiy, Jimmy
Morales, John Stewart, and David Letterman,
comedy now grounds the best chatshows as
well as the best politics. If Callan did showbiz
or giveaways at least he’d surely ridicule them.
Above all, he would challenge — unlike recent
incumbents.
Unless it’s Callan, and it won’t be, I certainly
won’t ever again be invited onto it, or indeed
watch it.
MEDIA
Clearly the best candidate
would be Oliver Callan:
comedian, impersonator
and Tubridy stand-in:
subversive, sharp and
acutely politically intelligent’
Kicking needed
