He Talked The Line

Joe Duffy looks ever so slightly wary as Hot Press approaches him in the resident’s lounge of the Galway Radisson Blu on a bright Saturday morning at the end of October. It’s only to be expected. On page 196 of his newly published autobiography, Just Joe, the controversial Liveline presenter warns, “Beware of print interviews, where you cannot control what ends up on the page.”

He laughs when I mention this. “I think I was advocating the power of the unedited radio interview where you’re live and what you say is what people hear. You know yourself. By the way, I presume this is a transcript interview?”
Opening with a lengthy, and occasionally somewhat grim, account of his family history, Just Joe chronicles the life and times of “the boy from Ballyer” who went on to become one of RTÉ’s biggest, and best paid, stars. While some of his memories of growing up as an impoverished working-class Dub cover familiar ground, he’s commendably honest about his late father’s alcoholism and his younger brother’s ongoing struggles with drug addiction.
Determined to break out of the poverty trap, having done his Leaving Cert, Duffy studied hard at night classes, and eventually went to Trinity in his early twenties, one of the first from his neighbourhood of Ballyfermot to do so.
A natural-born campaigner, he ultimately became president of the Union of Students in Ireland. At one stage he served a fortnight in Mountjoy for his involvement in a protest over the threat to take medical cards away from students.
After Trinity, he became a probation officer, before unexpectedly landing a job as a producer in RTÉ. While his career at the national broadcaster hasn’t been without its hiccups – he was unceremoniously dropped as roving reporter for The Gay Byrne Show in 1996 – he has consistently grown in stature. He took over the Liveline mic permanently in January 1999, and has since made the show his own. Today, with an average daily audience of 400,000, it’s the second most popular radio show in Ireland.
Happily married to June Meehan, Joe is the proud father of 16-year-old triplets, and reads, paints and collects model fire engines as hobbies. When not relaxing at home in Clontarf, he “lives, sleeps, eats and breathes Liveline.”
He’s in Galway for a signing at Eason’s and will be travelling to Mullingar for another one later this afternoon. It seems everyone wants to ‘talk to Joe’ (as the Liveline promo goes). For the next hour or so, though, he’s all mine...

OLAF TYARANSEN: Why did you decide to write your autobiography now?
JOE DUFFY: I’m 55, a couple of things happened over the last five or six years, most notably the recession in 2008, the collapse. I’ve three 16-year-old kids, they’re saying to me, “The lads in school or the girls in school are saying, ‘What’s the point in going on, in getting the Leaving Cert or going on to college, we’re all going to have to emigrate anyway?’” So I tried to make the point in the book that in the 55 years I’ve been on this Earth, in terms of Ireland and the changes I’ve lived through, it has been incredible, cataclysmic, and we ain’t going back to the way things were. I was trying to tell my kids that my granny – who they knew, she’s only dead a couple of years, she lived to nearly 100 – I remember when I was 10 seeing her home to Keogh Square in Inchicore, which is the former Richmond Barracks, where the 1916 rebels, some of them were taken, and there was a novelty in it for us because we could toast on the open fire with a fork…
The description in the book sounded fairly primitive.
She was in a room with no running water, no heating apart from the open fire, no cooking apart from the open fire. That’s the conditions she was living in in 1966, Olaf, and that was three years after John F. Kennedy came to Ireland, and that was supposed to be the big modernisation of Ireland. Thankfully there’s nobody living in that squalor now. By the way, she had been evicted from her house for not paying rent and that’s what the State gave her. That was in the ‘60s and ‘70s. We’ve come a long, long way. Whatever has happened in the last three years in terms of impact, which is devastating for so many families, we’ve still come an awful long way, and the overarching thing in the book that I try to get across, in terms of my story, is the power of education. It’s not me getting up five minutes earlier every morning that made the difference. It wasn’t luck, it wasn’t family, it was education.
Was the process of writing the book difficult?
No, I like books. I like the act of writing, I actually like sitting down, the unfolding of the words… they never come out the way you might have had them in your head and sometimes they’re a revelation, sometimes they’re nice to watch, sometimes they’re clunky, but I do like the act of writing. I’ve written a column for a newspaper for 20 years.
A book is a much longer haul than a newspaper column.
Oh absolutely, yeah. I knew I had to get into a routine so I wrote every morning and every evening. No matter what type of day it was, including Christmas Day, I sat down in front of the laptop and I banged out something. You could be sitting there for two hours and get nothing or you could be sitting there for 20 minutes and get three paragraphs or a frame or a shape might come onto a section.
Did you get emotional writing it?
Yeah, I did. I had written up the (prologue) ‘Footprints In The Custard’ story, I’d written up my father, that fist coming through the window story. I had written a piece about Trinity for one of these compendiums or whatever. So, we do a Christmas week programme on Liveline, people vote the top ‘Irish Book of the Year’, it’s a bit of a laugh. About four years ago, Peter Sheridan was in, Stephen Rea was in and a few others. Peter said to me in the course of it, “Would you ever think of writing a book?” It was only a throwaway remark, and I said, “Actually I’ve written a piece called ‘Footprints In The Custard’, and when I went home that night, some publisher had left a tub of Bird’s custard outside my hall door with a bottle of wine – not mixed in! He wasn’t looking for a gig, he just said, “If you’re writing, just keep writing.” Now I made one mistake. I got this notion into my head that I would get all the columns I’ve written over the 20 years – they’re not all there obviously, but I have kept a fairly good record – four or five different pieces a week and I would collate them and number them and thematically sort them, that took me about three months. And then Eoin McHugh from Transworld said to me, “How’s the writing going?” and I said, “Oh I’m doing a lot of research.” He said “Write the bloody thing… get into the routine of writing!” So once I got over that nonsense, I kept going.
You make a big thing about coming from a working-class family.
I’m from Ballyfermot. I don’t make a big thing about it, I state that’s where I’m from. When we did our Leaving Cert, which was in itself an achievement, there was absolutely no conversation about going on to third level. It wasn’t an option. We didn’t know anyone who went to college. We didn’t know anyone who knew anyone who went to college. That’s how removed it was from us – even though Trinity was at the end of the 78 bus stop. But I also make the point that, in the block where my mother still lives in Claddagh Green, three out of the four houses in that block have sent someone on to third level education in the last 20 years, which is magnificent. It’s about opportunity, it’s about access. We didn’t even know how to get into college. We were given out these leaflets about getting ANCO apprenticeships and bank clerks and that kind of thing. That’s all we were given. That’s one of the reasons why I got involved with USI.
The college authorities must have hated you in Trinity, given your appetite for stirring things up.
They completely overreacted. Every time we did anything they ran to the High Court! There were three of us from Ballyer. Me, Barry Cullen and Brian Dowling – the three of us were totally involved in the Student’s Union, in trying to have an impact. And when we arrived… Trinity was the Vatican State. It was the opposite of religion. It was totally self-contained. Self-regulated, self-ruled. Not self-funded, it was funded by my oul fella in Glenabbey, but then you had to pay a toll to get into it, this was the big barrier. They couldn’t understand people challenging their authority. And they ran to the High Court every time. Also we weren’t attached to any of those bizarre traditions of free commons, toasting the Queen, the ‘fellows’, the self-perpetuating elite as we called them… to become a fellow in Trinity you had to be elected by your fellow fellows. The board of Trinity was elected by the fellows and even though the funding of the college was primarily from the State there was no-one representing the taxpayer on the board of Trinity. So I think they misunderstood us. It brings me back to the issue, that Trinity College is still the single most valuable educational resource in the country, both in terms of what they have and secondly, its location. And still they don’t offer evening degree courses, they don’t give people options, there’s no flexibility. This incredible resource should come up with new ways of actually letting people access their product.
You discuss your younger brother and his drink and drug problems. Has he read the book?
Brendan? Yeah, he has, yeah.
What’s his take on it?
Well, first of all, Brendan has been in the public eye, because he’s given interviews before. Anytime he’s in court, including in this city (Galway – Ed), he’s identified as my brother. That’s been in quite a few papers over the years. I’ve never spoken about it before. I knew he was known around Dublin as my brother. I don’t know whether you’ve met him, but he introduces himself as my brother. The last conversation I had with him was two days ago, and again it’s a conversation we’ve had time and time and time again: as I say in the book he is easily the brightest in our family. He’s very artistic, very creative. He made good choices along the way and he’s made bad choices, and at the minute, at the minute, he’s in one of those areas where he’s not making good choices for himself, and he has got the ability to make good choices. And he does know how to access services, and he does know how to access help. So I’m saying to him, “Come on, Brendan, you know where to go, you know who your key worker is, you’ve been there before, you’ve encouraged people before to go to AA or whatever, get back in.” But in the last few years, he’s not been open to that. And there will always be that disagreement between us.
Were you the good brother and he the bad brother?
You see that’s a real dilemma, isn’t it? That sits on my shoulder now a lot. See, I don’t think he’s bad. Our last words to each other the other day were, “I love you,” “I love you, too,” and then you start talking about Sean Gallagher and all this carry on and whatever (chuckles). At one stage he says to me, because we were having this debate, I said, “Brendan, you know where to go...” – he’s 51 by the way – and he says, “Ah come on, you’re sounding like Sean Gallagher!” So he’s completely up to speed on everything that’s going on but… I don’t believe I’m good. I believe I’ve been able to push myself to make choices… he made choices, he ran his own business, he had five people working for him, and he ran a good business too, but he slipped again unfortunately. I told him, “Brendan, you can go back to being that way again.” Like, there’s no good brothers or bad brothers or good sons or bad sons or daughters in our house. To my mother we’re all the same. She opens the door to Brendan the same as she opens the door to us. She gives Brendan the same food as she gives us. I try and make the point in the book that people who are in difficulties, like Brendan – now there’s no drugs at the minute, as far as I know, except alcohol – but people who are in difficulties have to realise the impact that they are having.
How do you mean?
My mother is 83. He has to know the impact he’s having on my mother, and I just know from going around the country and people contacting me since the book came out – every family has that difficulty. How do you face up to it? Are you in that dilemma: have you done enough? And the answer is different every day. Do you feel guilty? Some days you do and some days you don’t. Do you worry about the phone call? Yes, you do. Do you worry about the guards calling to the door saying, “Are you Brendan Duffy’s brother?” Yes, you do. Even though he’s 51 and even though I was a social worker and a family therapist and did go to Adult Children of Alcoholics, to try and deal with that guilt that people feel – “did I do enough?” and “why me and why not him?” – it’s still a dilemma you go through every day.
Did you ever experiment with drugs?
No. I was hysterical about them, anti. People know that. When I was standing for election for USI… I just… no. I’ve never seen a happy drug addict. I’ve worked in probation, I’ve lived in Ballyfermot, I was a social worker for six years in the toughest end of the spectrum – I’ve never met a happy drug addict. Ever. So full stop. No interest.
Do you drink?
Yeah, I take a drink.
Do you enjoy drinking?
Yeah, yeah, it’s pleasant. Alcohol in itself, one drink or a glass of wine in itself isn’t bad.
Could the same not be said of smoking a joint?
No, I’m not getting into a whole thing about cannabis. I know the argument well, I read all your stuff! I’ve no interest in legalising any more drugs, no interest whatsoever. No belief in the joy of it… even on a very simple thing: you legalise cannabis here, the country becomes a mecca for people who are interested in smoking cannabis. No thanks! If we had a decision to make all over again, if tobacco was invented in the morning, would we legalise it? No. You can’t roll back. You can try and have State policies and whatever, but no I’m not interested in legalising any more drugs, not interested in head shops, not interested.
Speaking of head shops...
I knew you’d come to that (laughs)!
When Liveline successfully campaigned to close down Irish headshops, did you not consider that you were just handing the market straight back to street dealers?
No, no. It’s all about access. A hundred shops. We did head shops before when there was a few of them and then in January 2010, I was in Cabra on Christmas Day and someone said to me, “Do you know there’s a new head shop down in Talbot Street and he’s open 24/7 over Christmas?” Then I happened to mention this in a promo when we started back on the second of January and the phone rang going, “Hang on, there’s a new head shop in Boyle”; “There’s a new head shop in Athy”; “There’s a new head shop in Newbridge.” There was a hundred of them and nobody knew this, selling this poison. It’s about access.
Most people don’t have a problem accessing drugs if they really want them.
Well, my kids don’t know where to get illegal drugs. I’m sorry, Olaf, they don’t.
Are you sure about that?
Yeah, I am. A lot of people don’t know where to get illegal drugs. And I just don’t believe we should give in or benchmark ourselves against, “Oh you can get it down in wherever.” I have no idea where you can get it. And then people say, “Oh, they can get it over the internet.” This is the other argument against the headshops. My kids don’t have a credit card or a separate address for the stuff to be posted to, so it’s the best thing that Brian Cowen did. On March 9, 2010, at two o’clock he announced they were shutting head shops and by five o’clock every single head shop in the country was visited and was shut down by Gardaí. That is the most incredible thing. Cowen gets no credit for that. He did it, and I know some people don’t agree with it, but that government gets no credit for that. The money that was being made, and the stuff that they were selling in the headshops was totally lunatic stuff, lunatic stuff.
In the book you write that you had no idea Gerry Ryan was a cocaine-user.
No. I knew him through work primarily. Met him every day in work around 12 o’clock. My understanding of drug use is – and drink as well, abuse of alcohol – you can’t function the next day if you’re on gear or you’re on cocaine or you’re drinking your head off, you just can’t function. He couldn’t come into work and hide in the corner or go to the canteen for the day – he had to go on air for three hours every day, same as all of us. Had to do 15 hours a week live. Somebody would have spotted that he’s talking gobbledy-gook or he’s not making sense or he’s being rude or he’s falling asleep or he’s puking or whatever you do, and that didn’t strike me… Now I didn’t see him socially because there was a different cycle to our lives. His children are older than mine. I had three children in 1995, so from 1995 until then and now, basically we were rearing three young kids. It was only in the last year actually that that’s eased up a bit, but maybe that was a godsend to me, maybe it kept me out. I’ve never been in Lillie’s Bordello, never been in Renards, never been in The K Club or whatever these fuckin’ places are. Can you hear the tone of jealousy and envy in my voice (chuckles)? I never got into that scene.
Are you a bit puritanical?
No. I know the logic to what you’re saying but I’m not. I have my views and one of the reasons I wrote the book is to try and give people an understanding of why my views are so strong on certain things – on inequality, on a two-tier health system, on access to education, on drugs, on waste, corruption, abusive people, abuse of people, and you know, small people being ripped off. Basic stuff. I think Liveline has done, in its own way, in terms of warning people... it was only last week that that doctor was struck off by the medical council who was doing gastric banding. Two of those women had already gone to the medical council and got nowhere. Then they came on Liveline, then we got more calls about Lazlo Ruscsak – from Dublin where he was operating out of the Haven clinic, then from Ennis where he was operating out of the local hospital, the HSE hospital, then someone else said, “Oh yeah, he was up in Letterkenny at the local hospital, as well.” And thankfully those people told their stories and they were very, very powerful and then the Medical Council pricked up their ears and they struck him off. There was another incident a few weeks ago where a newspaper ran a competition, people won it, and they wouldn’t pay out. They rang Liveline and three days later the newspaper paid out. Fair is fair. I just don’t like seeing people being
ripped off.
You read a prayer at the Papal Mass in Galway in 1979. Your Catholicism seems very important to you.
I’d say it was more important to me earlier. In Trinity I used to go to mass every day. I think that was just 20 minutes of peace and quiet at one o’clock, thinking. I was very frightened when I went to Trinity because I had been three years out of education. I took it very seriously. You could argue I took it too seriously. Obviously I’d be disillusioned in the last few years and I’ve written about it in the book. Tony Walsh was in our house. Bill Kearney. These are priests, ex-priests… then we start getting calls about clerical sex abuse. The first radio interview Andrew Madden did was with me, about being abused by Ivan Payne. My thesis on this – all this abuse primarily, not totally but primarily, took place in working-class parishes, where they knew that the parents did not have the wherewithal, even in terms of writing letters to the bishop or the network or the connections which you might have got if you went to third level or whatever, to complain. And they preyed on these communities. Where did Tony Walsh and Bill Kearney thrive? Ballyfermot, Kilmore, Ringsend, Artane, Coolock… these are all working-class areas. You had the other fella, he’s deceased now, but the guy up in Drimnagh with the swimming pool in the presbytery in the back garden. Drimnagh, Crumlin, Walkinstown.
How do you think Ryan Tubridy is peforming in Gerry Ryan’s slot?
The figures are the figures. It’s very tough. Radio is like any entertainment medium. It’s very hard to know what puts bums on seats. What you have to do is find your voice, and then when you find your voice to have the confidence to stick with it. I think, and I’ve said this inside to managers as late as yesterday, that they made a mistake in getting rid of this review of the papers – Gerry started [his show] with the papers. And originally, Ryan started with the papers – they’ve now dropped that. I think it’s a bad idea. They have to have the confidence to stick with whatever they decide to do. And the problem is that when the figures start dropping, nobody has a definitive answer. That is our business. If your sales drop, Niall (Stokes) calls you all in and eight of you will throw forward eight different ideas as to why they’re dropping but the main thing is to keep… Hot Press has a product, it has a niche, has a brand – to stick with that.
So what is the answer?
I would have put Tubs on between eight and 10, I would have tried to relax him a lot more into that. Remember The Full Irish Breakfast live, right? But it’s very, very difficult. Every single day if I’m not in, people know I’m not in. You’ve gotta keep coming in every day, you’ve got to keep working, and you’ve got to just try and focus on what you want to do on your programme. I say it to any new person who comes in to work on Liveline – you sit down and ask, “What is the difference between Liveline and other programmes?” The Tubridy Show needs to do that as well. What is our difference going to be? What is our unique selling point? And you’ve got to focus on that and then hold your nerve: it will come round. Now, I didn’t sit down with a sheet of paper and say this is how we’re going to go from number seven in 2002 to number two in 2007 with Liveline. It’s a very hard business. But I think there is a bit of panic there. I wouldn’t panic. I think they should go back to stuff they’re comfortable with.
On Liveline, do you and the producers decide, “Okay, we’re gonna do whatever topic today,” and then you deliberately set up callers to get that specific ball rolling.
The big decision you make on Liveline is what you’re not putting on. Otherwise every day will be Ryanair or A&E or whatever. By Friday, after five days, you’ll have very few listeners because people get fed up. Somebody has to decide what we’re not putting on. It’s the hardest thing a producer has to do, because everyone has a story. One day you could put on a Ryanair story and there could be no interest in it; the next day you could put on a Ryanair story – of less import in your view – and the phones could go on fire. You can’t predict it. I have 400,000 listeners a day, two million a week. Touch wood (touches table). You have a fair idea where your first call is coming from, though you still wait in hope for the magic call at 20 past one about something that’s just happened or whatever – but while you have a fair idea of where Liveline is going to start, you have no idea where it’s going to end. It could be in tears. That’s the wonderful thing about the show: it’s calibrated, moved and shifted by the callers. Despite what people think, I don’t have a time delay…
Not even after the infamous Monica Leech libel incident in 2004?
No, no. There was a big committee set up, I haven’t heard back from them. I don’t have the control over the callers or microphones – I can cut off my own mic, which is a wonderful thing to be able to do – but I can’t cut off the callers. That’s the sound operator outside.
Is that not very risky?
Well, it’s miraculous that we’ve done so well. There was one this week where I had to cut someone off because she innocently referred to an ongoing court case. There was no malice in it. I had to cut her off. The other thing I worry about it is, if we’re hit with a libel, because of the size of our audience, you’re talking big, big bucks. As I say in the book, I think RTÉ should have stood their ground and argued their case on the Monica Leech thing. But I was totally out of the loop on that.
It seems like there’s an ongoing battle between the talent and the management at RTÉ...
Gay (Byrne) goes on about that all the time. Here we are on the one hand, as a public service organisation, we’ve got to make programmes, especially Liveline, that people listen to. When someone rings in about a doctor in Dublin, we’ve got to have some sense that there’s people listening in Sligo, Letterkenny and Waterford that might know that doctor. That is public service. Or a conman, or a rip-off or whatever, that you have got that national reach. It’s really critical. But I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again, before this interview goes out, before you leave this hotel, I can get a call from RTÉ saying, “By the way, you’re finished.” I can lose all sense of my self and say, “Oh there’s gonna be a picket in RTÉ on Monday.” There won’t! I could lose all sense of my self and say, “There’s gonna be editorials in the papers.” There won’t! If they decide you’re gone, you’re gone. That’s the business we’re in. Management want that power over you because they’re trying to put bums on seats.
Surely you have a contract?
They can have me off the air today and I’ll be gone within four weeks, full stop. No appeal system, no labour courts, no unfair dismissals, end of story, bye bye, if that’s what they want. I understand that. That is the nature of the business. You’ve got to act quickly if something is going wrong. You’ve got to try and spot it quickly, you’ve got to move quickly. By the way, that’s the way for a lot people in the current atmosphere. I’m very conscious of that.
Do you think the high salaries of certain RTÉ stars are justified?
Well, they’re not salaries, they’re fees. I know there’s no winning that argument. Compared to a fireman, or a nurse, we’re all overpaid in that sense, but compared to other people in RTÉ, other people doing the type of stuff you’re doing, you’ve got to go in and try and argue your value. You’re going to ask the next question; did I take a hit? I know you – you’ve researched it anyway. I did take a hit. From October 1, I took a hit. In September 2008 I took another hit. And a year later I took another reduction in my fee. So now I’ve taken 30% from October 1 on the fee. I have to, as everyone has, up the pension, and try and see what way I’m going to organise a sick pay safety net because I’m not getting any younger. But I’m not looking for sympathy. I’m just arguing that this is the job I’m doing. I generate an income for RTÉ. I generate an economy for RTÉ. We have two million listeners every week of the year. We have ads, and lots of them, thank God. It’s a very, very cheap programme to produce. I’ve three producers and a researcher. We don’t pay contributors. We’ve no expenses. And there’s just one week we’re not on, that’s three days over Christmas. So I think Liveline and I represent good value to RTÉ.
You’re a regular target for satire on radio shows like Gift Grub. Does it bother you?
Well you know… (chuckles). I know I’m walking into traps here, left, right and centre. I’m walking into swamps. Mario, Oliver Callan, Aprés Match, I’ve never, ever had a problem with. It was my kids who first told me about Gift Grub. Even though it’s going a long time I wouldn’t listen to it. I like Ian (Dempsey), but I would listen to news programmes. I used to listen to them and say, “Jesus, that couldn’t be me!’” you know – “Sure, sure, sure…” and the drone or whatever – and then Mario or Oliver would do Bertie Ahern and I’d say, “God, he’s brilliant at doing Bertie, isn’t he? He’s brilliant at doing Enda Kenny or Michael D.” So I said, hang on, if they’re brilliant at doing that then… (laughs). But no I’ve no issue with that.
How about David McSavage’s portrayal of you on The Savage Eye?
I know I’m not going to get any traction with this and I’m only answering because you asked – and let the record show that Olaf Tyaransen raised this issue with Joe Duffy. Joe Duffy did not hold up a card. Is there a card in my hand that says, “Please mention David McSavage”? No, there’s not! I think some of the stuff that David does about Ireland is brilliant, it’s so incisive and insightful, the stuff he does about politicians and race and stuff like that. But the image he has of Liveline I do object to: he’s abusing Liveline listeners, RTÉ are abusing Liveline listeners. They are portraying the listeners as getting a kick out of this. They are portraying me – and I do not... I do get annoyed at this particular piece that they keep doing every week – it’s only on for 12 episodes, and it gets 120,000 a week audience, so in one sense, why am I bothered? But I’m just making the point… [portraying me] getting sexual gratification from peoples’ ills is just beyond the pale. And they flew in a dwarf from Scotland for a number of episodes and he’s rogering me in the studio. Now, I don’t get it – like, they wouldn’t do it on a female presenter. I do like Liveline listeners. I do respect them. I am very protective of Liveline listeners and I hope I’ve showed in terms of courtesy or whatever that I do really appreciate people participating. And I think RTÉ should be grateful for that as well. You can portray me as an idiot and a dope, that’s fine, big deal. When he portrays the whole thing as either a caller or the presenter, primarily the presenter, getting a sexual hit from peoples’ really, really tough stories, I think that’s a judgement call. I wouldn’t have gone down that road. But anyway that will be portrayed as ‘Joe Duffy, no sense of humour’. I do have a sense of humour.
It’s rumoured that Tubridy is going to make a permanent move to the BBC. Would you present The Late Late Show?
Yeah, I’d do anything, I’d do any telly. Now I’ve been dropped from telly in the last few weeks (laughs). I did a live programme for three months every year on a Sunday evening called Spirit Level, which I loved, and I primarily loved it because it was live. Now it was from the religious affairs department, but I was told the other day it’s gone because of cutbacks, which is a great pity. So I’m available for live television for any station, Olaf, any station.
What’s been your greatest achievement?
Being here I suppose (shrugs). Your greatest achievement is your kids, isn’t it? Without a shadow of a doubt. I’m not from a background where you lie back looking at the stars and say, “My greatest achievement is…” You know, you don’t. I’m always dogged by the Larry Mullen question. Larry says to himself, “When am I gonna be found out?” He says, “I don’t know sometimes if I’m a good drummer. I don’t know if I’m the best drummer, and I don’t even know sometimes if I’m the best drummer in the band!” You know the story I tell in the book, about the fella I was in college with who was away in Sweden for years and he rings his mother and says, “What’s Joe Duffy doing now?” and the mother says, “He just answers the phones in RTÉ.” You live in that insecurity, but then you ask yourself, “Hang on, Joe, if you’re so worried about insecurity, why are you in this job?” There’s no grand plan. There has never been a grand plan.
Do you have a motto in life?
You’re never as good as critics say you are, and you’re never as bad as critics say you are. I think the biggest downfall for people in our business is hubris, believing your own publicity. So don’t lose the run of yourself.

Just Joe: My Autobiography by Joe Duffy is published by Transworld Ireland.