Because they didn't win and I didn't lose." I really hope there's no hard feelings." And I was thinking afterwards: are there any hard feelings? And there really aren't. We ended up in the bar one night and I said to the wife, "I heard you've home schooled the kids." And she turned to me - and it was like something from a Tennessee Williams play - and said: "I believe I have you at a disadvantage. My kids ended up playing with their kids and Sarah got talking to them and it emerged that they had home schooled their kids. They had a pristine kind of glamour, a sort of Mad Men type of look. "There was a couple who caught my eye because they seemed incredibly well dressed for a weekend away. "I don't have the visceral indignation I would have had a while back." "There you go, what are you going to do?" he says. It was perhaps this equanimity about how it had all worked out for everyone that made him all but shrug some months later when it was announced that Waters would be joining the Sunday Independent as a columnist. What really calmed me down however was the realisation that these people, in 'clearing their good names' I don't think it did them a whole lot of good." In a debate that is very robust for people who debate professionally to instantly run off to the lawyers, was bizarre. "I pretty much thought it was a very disgusting thing to do. So how did he feel about the way Waters dealt with the situation? He'd interviewed John Waters on the Saturday Night Show and describes the fathers' rights campaigner as one of his favourite interviewees. Obviously, I wasn't privy to any of the decision making, but I imagine there would have been more outrage if they'd gone and spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' money and lost by virtue of the lottery is." "Mainly, in fairness, no one blamed me out in RTE. At the time, there was a lot that could not be said for fear of further litigation but how does Brendan feel now looking back at it? Madonna, Graham Norton and Stephen Fry tweeted about it. What followed was a two-month long debate on the nature of homophobia and the need for reform of our libel laws. To enormous public outrage, the broadcaster decided to settle for a total reported to be €85,000 and Brendan had to read out an apology on the show. As a result of what was said during the interview, RTE received solicitors letters from several individuals, including certain members of the Iona Institute and journalists John Waters and Breda O'Brien. Panti-gate, as it was called, grew out of an interview that Brendan conducted with drag artist Rory O'Neill, aka Panti, in January of this year. One of these debates happened almost by accident but turned into one of the news stories of the year. Slowly but surely, it's also managed what the Late Late in it's heyday delivered: sparkling light entertainment nimbly offset with some heavy-duty debate on social issues. Unlike many of them he lacks what he calls the "brittle construct" of an onscreen persona - "you try to not turn into Roger Mellie or whatever." He's also an unlikely host - who could forget that ad where the punch line is his face making babies cry - and tells me he makes a virtue of his "clunkiness." It's his twinkle-eyed scepticism and quick wit that's made him one of our more flexible and relateable interrogators and turned the Saturday Night Show into a ratings winner. In fact, if any of our chat show supremos is the same when the cameras are off as when they're on it is Brendan. And who better than someone who knows you to separate the private person from the public myth and find the chubby, frightened child inside the slim, successful adult? And there are two great advantages of interviewing a 'family member' - you have a lot more dirt on them than you would on most other people. We know what you're thinking, and yes, there is something incestuous about one journalist interviewing another, especially, when, as is the case with Brendan O'Connor and me, we write for the same newspaper.īut in our defence: promo. In conversation with Donal Lynch, our own Brendan O'Connor looks back on a controversial season of The Saturday Night Show and forward to the new one.
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