The Meaning of Life with Gay Byrne

Gabriel Byrne shares more than a name with his interviewer. Both were sons of Guinness workers; both were educated by the Christian Brothers. This bond provides the basis for a searching interview, in which Gabriel talks engagingly and openly about his life: his decision to enter a UK seminary at the age of eleven; his experiences of clerical sexual abuse; his reasons for giving up on any idea of priesthood and his search for another vocation, which found fulfilment in acting; his relationships with the two key women in his life, Aine O’Connor and Ellen Barkin; his ongoing struggle with twin demons – alcoholism and depression – in which he knows he is far from alone in this country; and the reason he thinks so much about death.

Tommy Tiernan hit the headlines last summer with what were perceived as horrifically anti-semitic remarks. To Gay Byrne, who knows him well, this outburst was mystifying, since he doesn’t imagine for a moment that Tommy espouses those obnoxious views. Tommy sets out to explain why, in his view, the stage gives him not only a licence, but a sacred duty, to say the unsayable, whatever the consequences. Religion proves a surprisingly strong element in his make-up.

Brenda Fricker’s prefaces her confidences several times with the words, “I’ve never told anyone this…” as she discusses her some of the harrowing experiences of her childhood. For her, the faith that her own mother and the Sisters at Loreto, St Stephen’s Green, tried to instil, has ebbed away, so that she now says she’s not sure what she believes – “Depends on what day you ask me.” She hopes that her recently deceased sister has gone to a happier place, along with the two key men in her life – her father, Des Fricker, and her husband Barry Davis. But she doesn’t know. And she says she’ll have a few tough questions for God, if she ever makes it to the Pearly Gates herself. The Oscar award-winning actress talks about acting and fame and the depression that has crippled her for so much of her adult life. But she also reveals enormous heart, warmth and humour.

Bertie Ahern. Surely, everyone has now heard everything the former Taoiseach has to say on just about anything… except, perhaps, the things they’d most like to hear him talk about. And yet this is an interview with a difference, as Bertie talks candidly about his far from fashionable attachment to Catholicism and the influence it has had on his life and career. Unlike Tony Blair, of whom Alistair Campbell famously said, “We don’t do God,” Bertie does “do God”, accepting that questions about his faith are a legitimate line of enquiry. He reveals how, in spite of his instinctive attachment to the Catholic Church, he felt compelled to launch the enquiries that have exposed the institution’s scandalous failings. He explains how he prays for assistance, when his back is against the wall politically, without letting his beliefs shape policy. He talks about how he reconciled his faith with the collapse of his marriage and “living in sin” with Celia Larkin. He also tells how Christian belief offered an unlikely breakthrough in his relations with Ian Paisley.

Mary Robinson arrived for her interview hotfoot from Copenhagen, where she had been participating in the global summit on climate control. For the moment, the former President’s life seems to consist of one long round of airports and summits, trying to bring moral influence on politicians who are often deeply resistant to her arguments. Where does this idealism and often thwarted passion come from? She talks about her privileged upbringing in a doctor’s house in Ballina, Co. Mayo, and the sense of obligation that was instilled alongside that privilege. She discusses how she nearly became a nun, and yet went on to scandalise her Catholic parents in a series of confrontations with the power and influence of the Catholic Church, especially in relation to women. However, perhaps surprisingly, her Christian faith, though challenged by these battles and broadened by encounters with other religions, remains intact at the core of her moral vision for the world.

In her 80th year, Edna O’Brien reflects on the way her turbulent life has shaped her religious beliefs and moral values. Years in self-imposed exile from both her country and her Church have not diminished her attachment to both. Despite scandalising her family – her mother kept a censored copy of The Country Girls in an outhouse, wrapped in sacking and her father and brother once travelled to the Isle of Man to beat up her then lover, Ernest Gebler – she tells Gay Byrne she will now ask only for God’s blessing, no longer his forgiveness, if and when she meets him.