I know, I know
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They wouldn’t be able for tommy tiernan
It is a bit, claiming your mates in rte say ryan is lovely, then denying you made the claim, then standing over the claim while denying it.
Say hi to your mate/mates in rte for us…
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By god, you just never know on TFK
Not in the daytime slot, but Tommy is both talented and funny. Wogan was fairly risque at some stage.
Chris Evans is as good a radio host as there is imho.
It’s getting weirder,
I’ve no idea even what you’re on about now.
I deny nothing,
I have been told that Ryan was well got in RTÉ, I said that here before (uncovered by you)
Sometimes it seems like your seconds away from your head exploding, I don’t understand you 
Chuckle
Jesus I’d love to explain but @Raylan doesn’t like it
Sure what harm…,.
I’ll try
I don’t have a ‘whole hape of mates’ I have 2 (I’ll include my wife’s pal because I’m friendly with her as well. [quote=“glenshane, post:357, topic:5831, full:true”]
So he’s incredibly popular in rte, according to your mates there…a ringing endorsement but for the fact that your mates consist of one friend and a pal of your wife’s?
Would you ever go and boil your head
[/quote]
I said he was well liked in RTÉ, the ‘incredibly popular’ quote that you mined was cut to remove the beginning of the sentence.
I’m baffled by this 
My 9 year old just declared she’s not watching the Toy Show next week over “what they did to Ryan Tubridy”.
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You wouldn’t get that on mumsnet. Jaysus
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He’s one of the best kids in my SPHE lessons 
#proud
This isn’t even sport any more. I almost feel a bit guilty.
It’s been a funny few hours for you, maybe you’re having an episode of some sort
It’s been (bizarrely) interesting
Ok, pal(s)
It’s the 9 year old equivalent of “I’m never drinking again.” Easy say it a week out.
She’ll break. Like we all do.
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Ryan Tubridy: I’m buzzing with my new job, girlfriend and life in London
Former RTE star hails new show in London as a dream come true — and says it will reveal a new ‘pub side’ of his personality
Ryan Tubridy says the Virgin Radio presenter Chris Evans has been something of a mentor
Sunday November 19 2023, 12.01am GMT, The Sunday Times
Ryan Tubridy sits in a meeting room of the News Building, a 17-storey glass monolith next to the Shard in London. He turns the laptop so I can see his impressive view, and when he turns it back he’s grinning widely.
We’re speaking only an hour after he came off air on Virgin Radio, where he announced his new show with the station. Chris Evans introduced him to listeners while warmly welcoming him to the radio family, and Jeremy Kyle dropped in live on air to say hello. He’s fizzing with excitement.
“We’re playing senior hurling now, you know — it’s a real dream come true. I’ve respected Chris Evans for so many years as a broadcaster, and latterly as a friend, adviser and, more recently, a mentor. He’s been quite instrumental really in all of this happening. I was in London and he said ‘come in for a cup of coffee’ some weeks ago, which I did. We were shooting the breeze on the radio and then the boss here asked me to come in and see him. I had no intention of having a conversation with Virgin at all, we were over to meet other people who asked to meet us for different offers and then this came about quite out of the blue. The conversation started and Noel Kelly [Tubridy’s agent] negotiated a beautiful contract. I’ve been sitting on the secret for a long time.”
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As we chat he waves to his new colleagues going by in the corridor, and there are constant pings of phone notifications in the background.
“I can’t remember the last time my phone exploded this much. It is like a nuclear bomb went off in it. There are so many messages from well-wishers, and some from people I haven’t heard from for a long time. I think people are relieved for me. They’re happy for me. I think people felt there was a bit of injustice in the air and it was time to have a go at fairness. I’d always had a small dream to come to the UK but I just didn’t have the wherewithal to do it, and then circumstances changed and here we are. I couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity and that’s why you heard me fizzing on the radio this morning. Like Chris Evans said, I’m ready to go. I’m buzzing, it’s the only word I can use. I’m ready for chapter two of my career, of my life. It’s a lovely time to be alive. I would not have said that to you four months ago.”
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He’s referring, of course, to July when Ireland was gripped by the RTE payments scandal and he and Kelly appeared before two Oireachtas committees to give their account of what had happened. He had been off air since the story broke in June, and gave an impassioned speech as the committee opened to say he was looking forward to getting back to work and to his listeners. That never happened.
“It was an extremely difficult time because it just felt like there was a lot of unfairness, and I use that word again, about the place and maybe a bit of disingenuous carry-on going on. But I think ultimately, when I pause for thought, I realise that all the experience did was to serve me better as a human being. And as a father, as a son, as a brother, as a friend, as a partner. And it brought out all these parts of me that needed to see the light of day that didn’t before. When I signed the contract last week, I got in the back of a taxi and I got two messages from my daughters and I just started to cry. You know, it just sums it all up. I realised that what I was doing this all for was for them and for my family. I wanted them to know that there were these awful things that happened but that I came to this new land for a new opportunity with people who have been so respectful and so welcoming and so warm and so appreciative, who don’t care about any of what happened.
“They just said, ‘We care about you, you are a great broadcaster and you are ready to do this. We trust you, we admire you, we want you.’ And, I don’t know, it’s like a different language. I got very excited but I was worried. I was so worried about it because I was so scarred from previous experiences. I was worried that it might not actually happen, that we might not sign off and when we did…” he trails off, sits back and exhales loudly. “It was the weight of the world off my shoulders. It really was. But now I have the job to do,” he laughs.
Ryan Tubridy says Virgin Radio made him feel respected and welcome after his scarring experience with the RTE payments scandal
There had been speculation that Tubridy, 50, might walk away from his longstanding relationship with Kelly, but the two stood firm.
“You know we could have cut each other loose in a moment of weakness, and we didn’t, it was never there. He put this deal together and he’s getting on so well with the Virgin team here. They just hit it off and here we are today, happy.”
Ryan’s new show at 10am follows Chris Evans’s breakfast show. The two have great chemistry and have known each other since 2009, when Evans was a guest on The Late Late Show. The two hit it off. Evans has long had an affinity with Irish radio stars, and they share a love for an RTE legend.
“When Chris Evans wrote his books he wrote about how he came to Ireland to get away from the craziness of his life. He was out fishing and he was listening to Gerry Ryan on the radio. Hearing him made him realise that he needed to get back on the radio. He says to this day that Gerry inspired him. I always loved Gerry because wherever Gerry went, mischief went, and I love mischief. Chris loves mischief too but he calls it punk, he makes punk radio. I think that Chris’s punkness and creativity is contagious and I think I’m going to reveal a side to me that people at home might not be familiar with. I think this new move is going to show a bit more of the pub version of me rather than the coffee shop version.”
There’s a sense of freedom around Tubridy, a giddiness and a new, more lighthearted version of the broadcaster who has been on the Irish airwaves in some form or another since he was 12. Entering a new market where he is less known would be scary to some, but he sees it as an opportunity to reveal Ryan 2.0.
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“It’s a huge freedom. I think it’s unfettered by expectation or legacy. You know, it’s just going to be, yeah, a new version of a relatively old fella. I had to pause for six months, for reasons that I didn’t see coming, or understand to be frank. It’s appropriate that Charles Dickens comes into my head today. I think of A Tale of Two Cities and the beginning of that book, if I’m not mistaken, is, ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’ That line was sent to me by the cosmos today because it is a tale of two cities now for me. It was the worst of times and now I’m about to enter a new year with a new story and new hope, and the best of times is yet to come.”
Ryan has long said that his first love is radio. The big plan when he stopped presenting The Late Late Show, and before everything that happened last summer, was to focus on his hour-long weekday radio show and have time for other projects. His relief to be getting back to the airwaves is visible. This isn’t a small job either — he’ll be on air from 10am to 1pm, Monday to Friday, on Virgin Radio UK, a station that attracts more than two million listeners a week, while broadcasting simultaneously on Dublin’s Q102. He will also present a dedicated Irish weekend show across Wireless Ireland stations on Q102, Cork’s 96FM, Live 95 in Limerick and on LMFM.
“I was always well served on radio at home. You know that I would never diss my friends on the ground in RTE because those people who work in those teams day to day are good, decent people, a lot of them are my friends. And I hope they’re doing OK, I know it’s tough out there but I hope they’re OK,” he says, gently shaking his head. It’s clear that even on a day of excitement the events of the last four months haven’t left him.
Before he starts his new job, of course, comes the big move to a new city. His followers on Instagram will have seen him exploring London over the last few weeks. Dropping into stores such as Daunt Books, feeling slightly uneasy at the height of the escalators in the Angel Tube station and last week getting lost on a run in Hyde Park. Evans called him “cute” on air when Tubridy described the areas where he might like to live, but he’s unfazed by changing countries and, as always, his daughters Julia, 18, and Ella, 24, are front and centre of all his plans.
Ryan Tubridy was a fixture on Irish television with The Late Late Show but says his first love was always radio
PA
“My girls are the least demanding young women you’ve ever met. I really mean that, they’re just beautiful souls. And their excitement has been so nicely placed. It was firstly for their dad, and secondly for the fun we’re going to have together. Killian Donnelly is currently Jean Valjean in Les Mis in the West End, and he’s been in touch to say bring the girls. They love Les Mis, I love Les Mis, we’re going to have so much fun. I love the museums here, the culture, the parks, even looking out to the skyscape here at the Shard, the Gherkin, you know if you’re bored of London you’re a fool,” he says, laughing, his excitement bursting through the screen.
“I’m going to rent, I want to find a nice apartment or something like that, with room for the girls. That’s the plan. I attended the Irish Post awards last week and it was a really lovely experience because every table I went past stopped for pictures and welcomed me and told me that London is a great place and the commute is easy. The Irish in London are a great community and they seem to be really chuffed that another one of them will be on the air here and I take that really seriously. I do think that there’s something about flying the flag. I won’t be heavy-handed about it but I want to do my country proud too.
“Terry Wogan was lovely to me when I started out here. We went for lunch and I remember sitting in the back of the car with him talking about Irish music and he said, ‘You know, if you ever need advice just don’t hesitate to ask.’ So there is a lovely sense of hands across the water. You know, rather than call the glazier to place a glass roof under your feet, they tend to help you through a hatch and say, ‘Come on,’ and I love that.”
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His appearance at the awards drew comments, mainly about his private life. He attended with his girlfriend Dr Clare Kambamettu, a big step for a man who has always been fiercely protective of his relationships. Posing for photos together looked significant, and Tubridy grins as he confirms that they are a couple.
Ryan Tubridy with Nadine Coyle at the Irish Post awards in London
DAVE BENETT/GETTY
“Yes, we are together and it’s been one of the more lovely beacons in a sea of doubt. If I can be a master of understatement here, I’ll say that the last few months have been intense and I was lucky here and there — and Clare was certainly one of those lucky moments.”
Kambamettu is a clinical psychologist who won the Rose of Tralee in 2010 as the London Rose. I mention this and Tubridy laughs loudly. “Yes, she’s all over this. I don’t need Chris Evans to show me around. Yeah, she’s got this covered. She’s wonderful,” he says, beaming.
The new show starts on January 4, which happens to be his father’s birthday, which he says feels “serendipitous”. His family, to whom he’s close, are all thrilled for him, especially his mum.
“Mum is very proud, though I think I’ll probably spend the time between now and when I start trying to explain again and again how an app works.”
He also wants to spend some time replying to the thousands of people who have written to him in the last four months. He has three containers full of letters from people who wanted to send their best wishes.
“I have maybe 2,000 to 3,000 letters and cards. The support on the ground was extraordinary. I don’t think that was reflected as much as it could have been elsewhere but on the ground and from the real people it was knockout, I won’t forget it.”
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It’s going to be a busy six weeks. Tubridy has to find somewhere to live, move everything over, spend Christmas with his loved ones and there are plans afoot for more work outside his new job.
“We’re already talking about television work and so many other opportunities that are going to be knocking on the door here and you know, they have said to me, that 20 years of live television experience is not usual, this is great and you’re a gun for hire. Absolutely I’m good to go. I won’t be bored,” he laughs.
With all the time Ryan was spending in the bookshops of London there had been some talk that his next project would be another book. That might have to be a long-term project now, but one that he is keen to explore. It could be another historical work from the author of JFK in Ireland, a children’s book or even, and perhaps most interestingly, a memoir.
“I don’t have a novel in me but I would write another history book for sure and I’d write another couple of children’s books. I definitely would love that,” he pauses and smiles. “There’s also my own personal story. I have a lot to say. I have a lot to say. I have seen a lot and, put it this way: I have copious copybooks full of notes I’ve been taking and I won’t be shredding them today or tomorrow. But that’s for another day.”
Jesus Christ, what a fucking cunt. There’s a lot of very offensive stuff from Tubridy in that. I am absolutely seething.
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I just got as far as “we’re playing senior hurling now” and had to stop. Did he ever really give a fuck about the people of Louth?
#apoplectic
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Best of luck to him.
That’s a lovely little puff piece.
This is my favourite line - ‘The conversation started and Noel Kelly [Tubridy’s agent] negotiated a beautiful contract.’
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