Eamon Dunphy

Eamon Dunphy hardly needs an introduction - not in this country, at least, where, uniquely for a journalist, he’s a bona-fide A-list celebrity. From soccer player to soccer pundit, ‘bootboy’ hack to respected broadcaster, Weakest Link to weakness for drink, the 57-year-old Dubliner has had a career that’s been as varied as it has been controversial. Love him or spit when you hear his name, it’s an indisputable fact that no other Irish media-figure – save perhaps for Gaybo or arch-nemesis Vincent Browne – has so exercised the jaws of the chattering classes (not to mention the soccer-loving classes) over the past two decades.

But even by his scandalising standards, 2002 has been a fairly tumultuous year for the man they call ‘The Dunph’. This interview took place in Today FM’s Abbey Street offices on Tuesday the 26th of November, three days before his last-ever Last Word broadcast (he’s quitting the hugely successful show after five-and-a-half years), and three weeks after his much-publicised ninth driving conviction (lucky to escape a prison sentence, he was fined £1,000 and banned from the road for ten years).
The most un-ghostly ghostwriter in publishing history, his controversial book Keane is still sitting snugly at the top of the bestsellers lists, three full months after its release. There’s also talk that he’s set to present a TV3 chat show in the New Year, going head-to-head with Pat Kenny’s The Late Late Show.
Although this interview was primarily intended to be his last words on The Last Word, we inevitably soon strayed into more interesting territory…

OLAF TYARANSEN: How does it feel to be finishing up with The Last Word?

EAMON DUNPHY: Well, I’m sad about the two hours of night on the radio which I love doing, and I love the interaction with the audience. We have a good audience – a good, strong, bright, irreverent audience, who don’t mind telling us what they think of us when it’s not good. So I really enjoy that. But I think we’ve taken the show as far as we could take it and it needs new energy now.
A key factor in that is Stuart Carolan, who did the humour but he was also a terrific producer, a great ideas person. And when he left in June, his view was that every programme has a life cycle that’s natural – and then it’s over. And he’s a very smart guy, a great friend of mine, and he planted that seed in my mind and I thought he’s right.
OT: Is there a sense that you personally are unable to stay in anything too long? You start getting restless…
ED: Well, yeah… I was with the Sunday Indo for about 14 years. That’s a long time in journalism, and it’s a long time as a columnist, as a sort of polemicist. It’s a long time in anything. And I’ve been working for RTE since 1978, which is about 24 years. So I’m not quite as… (pauses). I’ve left the Indo and I’ve left RTE twice, I think.
OT: Actually, there’s a rumour on the grapevine that you want to go back to the Sunday Independent.
ED: No (laughs heartily). No way! I think you should rule that out.
OT: Do their weekly attacks bother you at all?
ED: No – never. It makes me laugh. It doesn’t bother me because it doesn’t have any effect. But they are unpleasant. They can depict you in a certain way. If you fall out with Independent Newspapers, they can actually make it a mission project to get you. But newspapers – especially monopoly newspapers – should watch themselves, because they won’t always have that monopoly and if you start abusing a monopoly to stalk individuals, you’re in a bad zone. In the end, it’s not the person who inflicts the most hurt, it’s the person who can endure the most. And that’s quite a good motto for Dublin journalism. And I could endure a lot.
OT: It ain’t easy, is it?
ED: It is – there’s no problem with it. I swear, it doesn’t… penetrate. I see the people who write it and I say, "Howya doin’ guys?" And that really fucks their heads up (laughs). Because they really expect you to get wound up about them.
OT: Is that hardened attitude something that came with years of experience or were you always thick-skinned?
ED: No. I’ve actually got a lot of good friends in Dublin journalism. The only permanent person I think I’ve ever fallen out with was Vincent Browne – but then, that’s a big club. By no means an exclusive club (laughs). But all the other people I know around – I get on fine with them, if I see them we have a pint and a laugh. I was never sort of sensitive in that way. And I don’t believe you should be. I was tough enough – and am tough enough – to look after myself. And I’ve given my share out.
OT: You’ve had some serious rows with Fintan O’Toole in the past…
ED: Yeah. I initiated that. He was hostile to the Independent and I wrote a couple of very hostile pieces about Fintan. The Sunday Indo was a very, very important paper for quite a while. The editor was very good and the paper I thought was very good – there were some outstanding journalists there. So at that stage I thought the paper was worth fighting for. And Fintan attacked us – and John Waters did – and I fired a volley back, not so much at him, but at his politics. But I’ve great regard for him and always have had great regard for him – he’s a very decent guy, a very talented guy and we’re really good friends.
OT: How much of a difference is there between your public and private personas?
ED: There used to be a big difference when I was with the Indo, because there was this idea that I was a bootboy or something, but five-and-a-half years on the radio changed that. It’s a very intimate medium. It’s very spontaneous. You can’t fake it over that period of time. So I think the radio has rounded out my character or given people a sense that OK, I can lose it but, at the same time, I can have a laugh – at myself or just a laugh in general.
OT: You’ve told a couple of people to "fuck off" on air. Do you regret that?
ED: No. And it was only once I think. It was the equality guy – Crowley. He was just annoying me (laughs). But I wasn’t doing that every night. I mean, most of the time the radio programme wasn’t about me – it was about the quality of our contributors and the quality of the team I work with, and I was there as the front of house man. And I love the medium, it’s a fabulous medium.
OT: Do you regret not starting in radio earlier?
ED: Oh yeah! I would’ve loved to have started earlier. I’m 57 now and I was 51 before I ever did any radio. But when you think about it, it’s extraordinary that I never got a gig. But that’s how closed the place was. I mean, you know – you’re a freelance journalist and I’ve been where you are, and I’ve been out of work many times. RTE owned the ball and none of us could play unless some guy in RTE wanted you to. Two people in RTE could stop you dead. One guy on TV, one guy on the radio – end of story. So at least it’s opened up a bit, and that’s good for everybody. And I think it’s particularly good for people who are not sort of house trained.
OT: How do you feel about Matt Cooper being your replacement?
ED: I asked Matt to fill in for me originally – and Fintan – and that’s because I thought they were both good and brought something to it. So, em, he’s… a young guy, new energy, good journalist…
OT: It’s said that you seriously fell out with him over what he wrote about Roy Keane.
ED: I took great exception to an editorial he wrote, yeah. I thought it was a stupid thing to write [Cooper branded Keane "a thug" in a Sunday Tribune article – OT].
OT: Are you talking to him at the moment?
ED: We don’t talk every day (laughs heartily). I took great exception to that, I thought it was a real cheap shot. But everyone makes mistakes – including Matt Cooper, including me. So we’ll see how he gets on with the show. I mean, the Roy Keane experience over the last five months has been a very decisive period in my life. It’s changed a lot of my attitudes, I’ve lost some friends and it’s injected a bit of iron in my soul that’s not gonna leave.
OT: How are you getting on with Keane these days?
ED: I get on fantastic with him. He’s a sensational man. He’s a fabulous guy, he’s been very staunch through it all. He’s suffered a lot, he’s been very brave and he’s a good man.
OT: How involved were you behind the scenes during the whole Saipan affair?
ED: I wasn’t involved at all, Olaf, except for one phone call at a critical moment, when Michael Kennedy rang me at the very end. Roy was back in Manchester. I’d had no involvement with any of them.
OT: He didn’t call you from Saipan?
ED: No.
OT: Not even once?
ED: Em… once. One brief phone call. But I wasn’t involved in it, and neither to a great extent was anyone else, except for Alex Ferguson and his family. That’s the fact of the matter. Roy Keane’s a big, strong fella and no-one tells him what to think. The first person he would turn to for advice would be Alex Ferguson. And the second would be his own family, which is very strong.
OT: His wife or his parents?
ED: Both. His wife, Therese, his mother and father and his brothers and his sister. They’re a very close-knit group of people and he’s a very together fella. And I have no influence on him – nor would I wish to have influence on him, because it’s a responsibility that’s not mine.
OT: But surely, as the ghost writer of his autobiography, you were among his closest confidants?
ED: I wouldn’t say that. That’s a mistake and I never claimed that. I mean, certainly as a journalist I’d be the closest journalist to him, but the closest journalist to Roy Keane is still one hundred miles away from him (laughs).
OT: So you wouldn’t describe him as a friend?
ED: No, I wouldn’t describe him as a friend. I’d describe him as someone that I had a professional relationship with, and that it was a very happy professional relationship and I have amazing admiration for him. But I wouldn’t impose on him, I’d give him his space. And I think that’s the way he likes it and that’s the way I like it.
OT: How did it come about to begin with?
ED: He asked me to write it. Michael Kennedy contacted me and asked would I go for it? I said, ‘yeah, sure’.
And I don’t know why he asked me, but I regard it as an incredible compliment. Because I’d never really known him. I’d had two conversations with him before – both brief. And there were lots of journalists who would’ve loved to have done it.
OT: Your reputation preceded you…
ED: Well, obviously he’d been reading my stuff for a long time about the Irish team and all of that. And I guess he thought, here’s a straight guy, he’s my man. And I thought that was a great compliment.
OT: Do you think Liam Brady took McCarthy’s side against you in order to re-ignite your old row with him?
ED: I don’t know. I don’t know what got into Liam. He lost it altogether over the last few weeks, saying we don’t want Keane back and all that kind of stuff. But I like Liam, and Liam and I have got on very well over the last few years. We’ve been out and had a lot of good nights together. I’ve great respect for his view of the game, which is generally good. On the Keane issue, I dunno. Something got into him and Giles and, em, only they can say what it is. But it baffles me.
OT: What did you make of Tom Humphries publishing his Keane interview at such a critical moment?
ED: I thought that was great journalism. Roy spoke to him because he respected him as a journalist and I think he was right to respect him. Tom’s an outstanding sports journalist. And all through the Roy Keane thing, the one guy in our business who emerges with flying colours is Tom Humphries. I think he told it as he found it. And it’s great that that happened, because people reading the stuff have got an accurate account of what happened that’s fair to everybody. Nobody was 100% right, nobody was 100% wrong – and that’s what made it such a difficult experience for a lot of people.
OT: At the end of the day though, surely Roy Keane walked out on his country…
ED: (Interrupting) I don’t really think that. First of all, he didn’t walk out. He threatened to walk out and then he changed his mind. Then he was provoked the second time, and when he was provoked the second time he reacted, and then the press conference was called and he was sent home. He was publicly dismissed, but he didn’t actually walk out.
OT: Were you aware that there was going to be trouble ahead even before the World Cup started?
ED: Eh… no, I wasn’t really. I knew that he wasn’t in great physical shape. He had injuries. And I knew that he wasn’t happy with the way the team was being supported by the manager, and the logistics of the whole thing. I knew he regarded it as a shambles – and therefore a trial.
Don’t forget he’s in a dressing room with an Argentinian player, English players, French players – who’re talking about these amazing mansions that they stay in, and these great training headquarters, and these state of the art tracksuits and all this. So he knows what the world game is like. And he knows that you’ve gotta give yourselves every chance.
He says in his own book that he told a very close friend of his that his biggest nightmare was that he’d come to Dublin and they’d head off and it would be another bloody Carry On Up The World Cup. And that’s exactly what it was. So he had very much in his mind, heading off, this fear that it would be a balls-up. But I don’t think even he could have anticipated what he found. And that’s the problem. And he couldn’t hack it. And I don’t blame him.
OT: What were you feeling back in Dublin when all of this was happening? You must have realised that it was going to make the book a serious bestseller?
ED: Shock! No, I didn’t think it was gonna make the book. Actually I didn’t, Olaf. At that stage the book was finished virtually. I was hoping that the book would conclude with him leading Ireland, you know, a long way into the tournament, proving himself to be one of the world’s great players. If I was a cynic I’d have said, ‘well this will be great for sales’, but, you know, I’d already written the book.
OT: The book doesn’t go beyond the events in Saipan to deal with the fall-out…
ED: No. There’s another chapter to be written for the paperback about that. Actually the book is extremely kind to McCarthy and the other players. It doesn’t mention the piss-up… or some other stuff. I mean, it’s a very scrupulous and fair and accurate account of what happened. And that’s to Roy Keane’s credit – that he didn’t attempt to paint himself into a holier-than-thou position by saying, ‘I was in bed and all those guys were out until 7am’. That’s not his thing.
OT: Is it true that he hadn’t read all of the book before it went to print?
ED: He had read the book.
OT: But what about the controversial passage regarding the tackle on Alf Inge Haaland?
ED: It was a passage in which he goes over the top and fouls Haaland, and then he walks over to Haaland and he bends down and he says something. Now I had all of that. I had the video and his account of it. What I didn’t have was what he’d said. And the passage that offended was me imagining what he’d said, which I think was probably pretty close.
OT: What were the words you chose again?
ED: ‘Take that you fucking cunt!’ La – la – la. In other words, ‘That’s for the last time!’ But that was really hyped out of all proportion. He paid a heavy price for that one.
OT: Not that heavy, considering his salary!
ED: Well, £150,000 after tax and a five match ban is heavy, you know, for something that is no more than a factual account of what happened. And it was history – he’d already paid the price.
OT: Was he annoyed with you after that?
ED: No, not at all. He was brilliant. When that stuff was happening, he phoned me and said it’s cool. He was great. That was where he was really great. And I was with him the night that he got the hit in Bolton and he was great – a really, really strong guy. He said to me that there was no problem because that’s what he felt. And he’d read it, Ferguson had read it, I’d read it, Penguin had read it, the lawyers had read it – no-one spotted it. Just didn’t.
OT: Going back to Saipan for a moment, do you think that – even if only out of patriotism – he should’ve just fucking played, whatever the circumstances?
ED: Yeah. I think that’s what he felt. So after the first row when he lost it, he went back and said, ‘Look, I’ll stay’. But then this boy opened it up again and… (pauses). OK, the two questions you have to ask – should he have stayed? That’s a fair question. The other question that should’ve been asked of McCarthy and wasn’t asked is: was that interview with Tom Humphries worth opening the whole thing up again? This is why I think nobody’s completely right.
Look at what it’s cost for Roy Keane, for Mick McCarthy. It’s been a big mistake for McCarthy. It was childish to open it up again. And I think that’s really what most people now understand. I mean, Roy Keane, in the eye of the public – certainly the football-going public – is not diminished by this. I don’t think the football-going public think he walked out on his country. They know it was much more complicated than that. And they also know that what he was striving for was the best for all the players, and that he was acting as a team captain should act. He was being the shop steward, if you like.
And they’ve now got all the things he wanted – private way through Dublin Airport, business class seats, proper hotel, proper food. All the things he advocated and agitated for have been granted – so thanks, Roy! And the question is why the other senior players didn’t back him. And his belief is because they were muppets and cowards – and I agree with him.
OT: Didn’t you also call the Irish people ‘muppets’?
ED: No, I didn’t call the Irish people ‘muppets’, I called McCarthy a muppet. What I called the Irish people was – em, what was it? – ‘plastic Paddies’. But that was just the guys who were wearing those silly hats! But that’s not the Irish people. There’s a certain segment out there – bandwagon-hoppers – and they were on the Charlton bandwagon, they were on the McCarthy bandwagon. If we win the fucking Eurovision Song Contest, they’re on that wagon. And then someone wins an Oscar, they’re on that bandwagon – blah, blah. All that old Paddy stuff. They’re always singing ‘The Fields Of Athenry’. That’s not the Irish people – that’s just a small group of fuckin’ headbangers. Ya-hoos. They’re not really representative.
OT: Have you read Richard Ford’s novel The Sportswriter?
ED: I did, yeah. In fact, that might be the last novel I read.
OT: Any interest in writing fiction yourself?
ED: Kind of. But I tend not to read novels. I’m more drawn towards biographies as reading matter. And I’m thinking of writing an autobiography. I’ve been offered some money to do that. And I think I’d prefer to write it as a novel – to avoid the libel laws (laughs). But I’d like to write a book about Dublin journalism. It has to be done.
OT: Speaking of Dublin journalism, didn’t you show up drunk on RTE during the World Cup?
ED: Hungover! I wasn’t actually drunk (chuckles). I hadn’t slept!
OT: Was that not a sign of somebody under serious pressure?
ED: Oh, yeah! I was under pressure. It was a horrible experience because the vibe in the studio was bad – with Giles and Ray Houghton and the other guys and I was sort of… (pauses)… confronting a monster here for a while. Like, all those… crowd things.
OT: It was hardly the first time.
ED: No, but that’s sort of… That’s what sometimes you have to do. You have to just do it. And I felt strongly about the Cameroon match, I wore my colours – so I wasn’t exactly naïve. I knew exactly what I was doing. And I just thought it was important to do.
OT: But, at this point, you must know exactly what the tabloid reaction is going to be. Do you enjoy the backlashes?
ED: Well, I don’t enjoy it because I’m like sort of… (pauses). No-one likes being under pressure. Everyone would like to be ‘Top Of The Pops’ everyday, but some days you’re not, you know. It’s not a popularity contest for me. Sometimes if you’re doing the job, you’re going against the grain, you’re going against conventional wisdom, you’re going against people you’d be friendly with.
But this guy, Keane, in England, they were in the process of taking him down a back alley and kicking the shit out of him. And I’d like to think if I was walking down the street one night and I saw anybody down a back alley, I wouldn’t walk past and pretend I didn’t see it. That was what was going on here. It wasn’t just fans and the English media, it was actually a lot of guys who played for Ireland – all of them. The only guy who stood up for Roy was Paul McGrath. He was the only guy. I mean, Stapleton was putting the boot into him, Houghton was putting the boot into him, Giles was putting the boot into him…
OT: How are you getting on with Giles now?
ED: No-go! (waves hand away).
OT: Is it not hard doing soccer punditry with him on RTE, if it’s come to that?
ED: We do it as professionally as we can, but it’s a dead letter.
OT: But your friendship had lasted so long…
ED: Well, friendships are tested – and that was tested. When you go through that sort of thing – and don’t forget the person who was really going through that was Roy Keane. When you go through that crucible of experience, even over such a trivial thing as football – and it is a trivial thing at the end of the day, but it’s my business – and someone bottles it, in your book… And in my book, Giles bottled it. They all did. I can’t respect that. Especially with his baggage.
OT: But you were really good friends, weren’t you?
ED: It doesn’t matter! That’s life. I’ll get new friends, you know.
OT: What star sign are you?
ED: Eh? Em…(pauses and grins)… Leo.
OT: The lion!
ED: I’m not the lion really, but I knew what John was at the end. I knew that when push came to shove… (pauses). It’s not the first time I’ve been there with him. John doesn’t like to confront things, and he had the majority on his side and he went with the flow.
OT: When was the last time you were in a physical fight?
ED: The last time I was in a physical fight – and I’ve never been a physical man – was with Campbell Spray of the Sunday Independent and some other loo-la. He was drunk at a party and he started getting aggressive so I decked him, and then his mate dived in, so I decked him too. Zero for two and I quit! But I’m not much of a physical fighter. That was several years ago. I don’t do physical. I do verbal (laughs).
OT: Do you think Alex Ferguson should manage the Irish team?
ED: I think he’d be great. If something happened at Manchester United, I think he’d probably enjoy managing Ireland, but Kenny Dalglish would be a good choice at the moment, of the people who’re up for it. He seems to want it, he’d be a good choice. Joe Kinnear would be a good choice. Brian Kerr wouldn’t be my choice, but you have to respect his achievements with the Irish youth team. He’s done a good job and he’s a good man, but they probably need someone with more experience of working with professional players.
OT: How did you feel about McCarthy going?
ED: Ach, in the end I felt he was an eejit. I never thought he was right for the job.
OT: Though you stood up for him in the last Hot Press interview you did…
ED: Yeah, I suspended my disbelief for a long time, but he’d been getting good results for two or three years now, so it was working. I think Keane was a big part of that but McCarthy had to take the credit. I don’t ever think the Irish people bought into it in sufficient numbers. He just didn’t look or sound right. I’m sorry the guy lost his job, but he was manipulating at the end. He thought he’d get the Sunderland job. He was playing that old game with the press.
OT: Did you ever have harsh words with Keane?
ED: No, never. None. Absolutely got on brilliant with him. He’s smart, he understood why it happened the way it did. I said to him, about the serialisation of it, at the beginning, before we even wrote a word, I said, ‘Look this is dangerous.’ I actually used the word.
OT: Do you think he regrets the book now?
ED: I don’t know. I haven’t actually had an extended conversation with him about that. But when I saw him, the day he was suspended in Bolton when I gave evidence at the thing, he was fine. He was very philosophical, very pragmatic about it. I think he understood the dangers because lots of people in sport have been there with tabloid newspapers, they’ve been fucked over. So there was no recrimination at all – none.
OT: You’ve been fucked over a lot by tabloids yourself – despite the fact that you also write for one of them.
ED: Tabloids and broadsheets now – there’s not much difference, to be honest with you. ‘Tabloid’ is a phrase that covers a multitude. I’ve never really tried to cultivate an image. I just get on with my gig. I mean, you’re a young guy still, I didn’t get into this game until I was 34. A lot of these tabloid guys are trying to do it down the road, but their way of trying to be controversial is getting me. I mean, what do I own?
OT: Good question – what do you own?
ED: Fuck all!
OT: You must be a very wealthy man…
ED: I’m not a very wealthy man! I spend it like water (laughs). I’ve made more money in Irish journalism than anyone else, but nowhere near anything like the people who own the things. Nothing, you know.
OT: Your U2 book bought you a house…
ED: Yeah. I was lucky. I mean, that book and the Roy Keane book, and I’ve been a highly-paid journalist for a long time.
OT: Isn’t your first football book still in print?
ED: Yeah, the royalties appear to have been lost in the post though (smiles). But I do make a lot of money out of journalism now. I’ve had my periods of unemployment. I’m highly paid, but I always try to deliver to the person who’s signing the cheques, to get the audience. This place [Today FM] is now valued at sixty million – and it could’ve gone under. It probably would have if it hadn’t been for our show. So they’ve had a good deal, RTE got a good deal, Independent Newspapers got a good deal, so did The Star, Ireland On Sunday’s sales are up 177% so they’re getting a good deal.
But then if somebody wants me to work, I’ll say, ‘OK, pay me’. I’m not gonna be like other journalists in this town who are always skint or depending on the man to be nice to them at the end of the day. I’m not gonna be depending on the man at the end of the day. And I make no apologies for that. But I do work hard – long, hard days. I’m up every day at 6am, listening to Morning Ireland, I finish here at 7, go home and I’m in bed by 10pm.
OT: Except for those late boozy nights in Joys!
ED: Absolutely. At least once a fortnight, I’d say, I’m in Joys. There’s a lot of mythology though. What I tend to do is work thirteen days and then on the fourteenth I go bang. And boy, when I go bang…
OT: Why do you feel the need to work so hard? Is it because you’re from a working class background and are insecure that the money will run out one day?
ED: I’ll tell you what it is. I know that I want to be free to make decisions – like leaving here when the programme is strong. Or leaving RTE, if they fuck with me. That time I showed up and they said ‘You’re suspended’, I said, ‘Well fuck you – I don’t wanna work!’ To do that as a freelancer you have to keep two, three or four gigs there. So if one messes you around, you can go to the other. So I’ve constructed that deliberately. It’s not out of greed, because I’m a big spender.
I’ve a really good strong personal relationship – family-wise – so I’m allowed to work hard and I’m allowed to go and play. And Jane comes with me and plays. So in that regard I’m an easy mark for guys hanging out at Lillies, snooping around the place. I know they’re there, I don’t give a fuck. I don’t give a fuck what they write about me. I give a shit if the programme’s no good.
OT: What do you think of what happened to Angus Deayton?
ED: I think he’ll be back, first of all. I think it was tough. What he was doing was private. If you become the story in a satirical programme such as that, there is a problem for a few weeks. What they should’ve done was said, ‘Take a month off, Angus’. And as sure as night follows day, another person will be in the frame. I mean, I got mine last week for drunk-driving.
OT: You weren’t actually all that much over the limit, were you?
ED: Nothing, nothing (shakes head). Three glasses of wine. But I was over.
OT: What do you think of the drink-driving laws in this country?
ED: Well, I… (pauses). I think I got a fair break. I had a history with no insurance, no tax, I’d a fearful history. And I’ve no complaints about what happened to me at all. I’ll take my hit. So I don’t mind that. I don’t think anyone gives a shit what you do when you’re not working, to be honest with you. I genuinely don’t.
OT: Are you still a drug-user?
ED: Eh… no (laughs). Me? The last time I talked about it, it caused a lot of shit. My attitude to drugs is that most of them should be decriminalised. I’ve always believed that. I believe it now and I always will believe it. They should decriminalise that and get on with crime. People getting money for drugs is causing 70 or 80% of crime.
OT: Would you ever think of studying law like Vincent Browne?
ED: No. I study Vincent Browne. It’s much more interesting (laughs).
OT: There’s talk of you doing a chat show on TV3 next year…
ED: Yeah. Nothing’s been established in that regard yet, but I’m hoping to work with Stuart again and it’s one of the things I’d like to do. We’ve a few ideas for TV. But nothing will be happening for a while.
OT: If you do a TV chat show, it’s rumoured that you’ll run on a Friday directly against Pat Kenny. What are your feelings on Kenny these days?
ED: I’m on the record about Kenny, you know. I wouldn’t be a fan. But whether or not it’s possible to do that? That brand is so strong. Because the last five years of Byrne weren’t great. And Kenny’s been at it five or six years now, and it hasn’t been great. Yet the brand is still there, doing five or six hundred thousand every Friday night. And I watch it and… it’s an amazing brand. You’d wanna be getting up very early to go against it.
OT: Would you consider hosting The Late Late if you were offered it?
ED: I don’t think I’m their type of guy (smiles). It definitely isn’t an aspiration. I think I’m a different, edgier kind of guy. I wouldn’t mind having a pop at it though. Maybe. I wouldn’t rule it out (smiles).
OT: Who would you say is your biggest enemy in Irish public life?
ED: I’ve only one person that I know – Vincent Browne. I don’t think I have any other enemies, that I know of. I genuinely don’t. I’m not in the enemy business.
OT: Oh, come on!
ED: No, I swear, I’m not! When you meet me I don’t put the loaf on you, saying, ‘You wrote this about me ten years ago, man! Take that!’ (laughs and mock-headbutts). I don’t do that. Because I’ve written things about people.
OT: Do you have any regrets?
ED: I’ve loads of regrets. But on the whole, no. I’m happy enough with the way things are going. And I’m dead lucky with my health, dead lucky with my family, dead lucky with my work. There’s a few books I wanna do, a couple of TV things I’d like to do, maybe go back to radio at some stage. I just wanna keep working, keep out of trouble, keep out of the driving seat – keep out of cars (laughs). That’s about it.