RTÉ broadcaster Joe Duffy has paid tribute to Marian Finucane in the wake of her death – and said she “invented” the radio show that he is now well known for.
“She invented Liveline and she was the voice of reason,” he told RTÉ Radio One drivetime yesterday.
“It was her welcoming voice, her charming voice, everyone knew they’d get a fair hearing off Marian, albeit a priest, a prime minister, a politician or even just an ordinary citizen phoning in with their story,” he said of the late presenter.
Joe said that Marian was such a fair broadcaster, and asked all the questions listeners would like answers to.
“They knew it would be fair because she’d ask everything we wanted to ask before we’d make our mind up.”
“I still call on anybody to identify Marian Finucane’s party politics, I don’t think they’d know.”
He remembers Marian as someone who blazed a trail for women in broadcasting.
“We know she was brilliant in terms of the women’s movement in Ireland and she was an absolute trailblazer in terms of her broadcasting.”
“She was a most gracious, welcoming voice and personality, a fantastic personality, a fantastic sense of humour.”
Paying tribute to his colleague and friend, Joe praised Marian for her support in his early days at the broadcaster.
“She was incredibly supportive because I was extraordinarily nervous because Marian had been presenting a programme called Women Today and that started around 1978.”
“It was Marian Finucane’s Liveline, that’s what people used to call it.”
“But she was totally supportive and she was very keen and very persuasive in saying to me, ‘You find your own voice on that programme’.”
“Liveline depends on people having trust in her or the programme to ring in.”
Joe remembered Marian for her work steering the public through historical social changes.
“Marian, along with others in terms of the national public discourse, steered us through the Amendment campaign, the abortion campaign, the Marriage Equality referendum, all those incredible social changes that transformed Ireland in the last 20 years.”
“She had so many years ahead of her in terms of her curiosity, in terms of her energy, in terms of her extraordinary ability and sharp intelligence.”
Remembering Marian, Joe said he listened to her “voice of reason” on the morning show every day after Gay Byrne retired.
“But my main sense of Marian listening to her, as I did every single day on Liveline and then when she did the morning show after Gay [Byrne] retired and then on the weekends, was that she was the voice of reason.”
“You always knew you’d get a reasoned argument, a reasoned interrogation and she had that brilliant skill of in a very calm, incredulous way of getting the truth or a story out of somebody.”
“It’s a terrible loss of a great, great person.”
Marian passed away yesterday evening suddenly at her home in Kildare.
