My Thoughts on Gerry Ryan

My earliest memory of Gerry and his morning show is from around 2000. I’d just started a job in Portside Business centre on East Wall road and occasionally I’d see Gerry drive by in the opposite direction, me on my way to work and him on his way to RTE from Clontarf. It was cool to see someone famous up close then hear him live on the radio a few minutes later! The guys in the job had the radio permanently set to 2FM so I had no real choice but to listen to Gerry’s talk show even though I would have probably preferred some music.

I got addicted to the show and Gerry’s style pretty quickly and the hours from 9am to 12pm flew by as the show’s eclectic and often controversial topics generated heated discussion among my co-workers, some amazed at his direct style and ‘potty mouth’, others annoyed by him constantly interrupting his guests! The rest of the day crawled after he went off air.

In recent years, it’s been the custom in my house to get out of bed, come down to the kitchen and turn on the radio before anything else. It kinda kickstarts the day to hear what’s going on in the world with Gerry’s paper reviews or hear a bit of music and if the radio wasn’t set to 2FM then I’d tune it until I could hear Gerry’s voice.

It’s always very peculiar when a celebrity dies. Why the hell are we so affected by it (me included) even though the deceased has absolutely nothing to do with us!? In Gerry’s case it’s a bit different since you could say he was practically in the room with us every day, live. His voice and personality were also larger then life and dying just didn’t seem like the kinda thing he would do.

I’ll miss your show Gerry and I’ll be affected by the change to my routine as will thousands of others.

Enjoy the afterlife as you obviously enjoyed living.

Leon.