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You are > Home > The life and death of Gerry Ryan
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Wednesday, May 12, 2010
The life and death of Gerry Ryan
By Fr Brendan Hoban
I’VE a confession to make. I just couldn’t take Gerry Ryan.
Yes, I know that we shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, and I’m not, really. It’s just that while hundreds of thousands seemed to enjoy his loud, brash, in-your-face, often crude and aggressive attitude, as well as his seeming obsession with the forensic details of matters sexual, I preferred to listen to Pat Kenny and a panel of experts forensically examining some difficult issue and, it goes without saying, Kenny invariably answering all the questions himself.
Which means probably that 2FM got it right. I don’t think the suits in RTE were too worried that Ryan didn’t appeal to parish priests in their 60s, as the profile for 2FM is anything but grey. And while people of my generation and attitude who occasionally tuned into Gerry Ryan by mistake, found ourselves cringing with embarrassment, young people – and especially young housewives – seemed to lap up his zany approach.
I must confess I could never understand his popularity but then again there are a lot of mysteries I have reconciled myself to accepting – including the presence of evil in a world created by a loving God, and why Mayo in my long lifetime have never succeeded in winning an All-Ireland.
You’d imagine that after 20 years, for three hours five days a week, any audience would tire of Ryan’s defiant and arrogant attitude and yet, over 300,000 apparently still hung on for the pearls of wisdom that dropped effortlessly and sometimes thoughtlessly from his lips. I think it had something to do, not just with the attention we give to death in our culture, but with his huge presence.
I think ‘expansiveness’ rather than ‘charisma’ is what he had and he seemed to fill a radio or television studio. His strange, invasive presence seemed to come out of the radio into the kitchen. Which is why I think his death and funeral achieved such Princess Diana-like proportions. People felt that they knew him. His zany commentary on life seemed to resonate with so many of his audience that his death has left a huge gap in their lives – and in the 2FM schedule.
Of course, RTE for personal and, let’s face it, commercial reasons too, seemed to hype things mercilessly. The gallery of likely suspects trotted out on several programmes did little to honour Ryan’s memory as they sniffled their way through personal anecdotes starring – inevitably – themselves. Like actors, who can emote at the drop of a hat, at a time like this radio presenters should never be asked for their opinions because what they have to say is no more significant than the opinion of a man standing at a street corner, waiting for a bus.
More interesting was the sense of darkness that seemed to surround Ryan in his later years, something that seeped out through the edges of the predictable media tributes that followed his death, with words like “iconic” and “groundbreaking” thrown around all over the place. Those who knew him well – as distinct from all those who imagined they knew him well – seemed to be saying that he was “stressed”, “worried”, “had an unhealthy lifestyle”, not himself. While no one seemed to be actually using the word, “unhappy” seemed to fit.
While presenting three hours of radio for 20-plus years is enough to sap the energy of anyone, Ryan seemed to have reached a point in his life when the demons were gathering and a great unease was settling itself on him. His long marriage had broken down. He was living alone. His friends feared for his physical health.
And, of course, he was in a place that’s getting more and more crowded, a foreign country where more and more middle-aged men are struggling to cope with the guilt and unhappiness thrown up by unexpected separation. Living lives of quiet desperation as the securities that anchored their lives slip away from them.
In the Sunday Independent, the journalist, Jody Corcoran – himself separated and the father of young children – painted the outlines of that difficult world in graphic colours in the wake of Ryan’s death. Going home alone: “That is the killer moment, the moment the door shuts closed behind you and you are left with nothing but yourself and the sound of your own foot falling. It is at such a moment that you begin the process of questioning everything you thought you knew about yourself; a deep unravelling of your very core.”
That seemed to be where Gerry Ryan was at as he approached the end of his life. That lonely and bereft country where he had to cope with the ordeal of separation, the loss of a family life, the unexpected isolation that seemed to promise a new kind of freedom.
A place where, in Ryan’s own words, “the most robust, strong-willed and emotionally stable person will get a head spin out of it”.
That Ryan had plenty of money probably helped to ease the pain. As a celebrity he was never alone, enjoying the good life, indulging his interest in good food and fine wines.
Surrounded by his significant friends. The demons of loss, the moments of guilt, the stress of work, the inner turmoil, the huge effort to rebuild an ordinary life. And in the midst of that struggle a sudden and unexpected death at the relatively early age of 53 that brought a huge personal and communal sadness.
The Catholic Church supplied the centuries-old ritual and Fr Brian D’Arcy found the words to help Ryan’s wife, his children, his partner, his family to shape a scaffolding that helped them negotiate the difficult days of his parting. While couples getting married seem happy, in increasing numbers, to trade the dignity and solemnity of a church and its liturgy for the spare convenience of a rented hotel room as an apt setting to exchange their vows, there are as yet no convincing secular equivalents to the church funeral.
And it felt right that Gerry Ryan was waked and buried with a grace, dignity and formality that belied the brash personality who left his track on modern Ireland.
May he rest in peace and may those who grieve him find comfort.
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