'Joe Duffy did Ireland a great service and I will miss him'
There is no show like a Joe Show is what they used to say about Joe Dolan. Well let me tell you something there is no show on radio like a Joe Duffy Show.
The Liveline programme, which he hosted for a staggering 27 years is one of the best things that RTE has ever produced.
It started with the late Marian Finucane and then when she retired our Joe took it to a whole new level.
Liveline is the voice of the ordinary Irish people and if you want to test the temperature of the people of Ireland - tune in and you will quickly hear how they feel and what they are thinking.
Joe Duffy's decision to call it a day last Friday came like a bolt from the blue. Nobody saw it coming. He kept his cards close to his chest and in typical Joe style told the people who paid his wages first - his listeners and my is there some army of them.
If there is one programme that big business and all the politicians feared it was Liveline.
The last thing you want to hear is your name being mentioned on it or how your trade or industry has pulled a fast one on hard pressed consumers.
If there was something that they disliked the voters were quick to call Joe and tell him the politicians affected to back off and change whatever stupid idea they were proposing at 100 miles an hour.
Originally from working class Ballyfermot, Joe Duffy never forgot his roots or where he came from and that's what made him so special.
He might have mixed it with the hob knobs in Trinity College but knew the hard working people of Ireland who ate their dinner in the middle of the day inside out and also what exactly they were thinking.
He could bring up a subject that would get them going and within seconds the phones would be hopping.
There was a great line from his mother Mabel while out shopping in Ballyfermot. She was asked what Joe did in RTE and she replied; "He answers the phones." She certainly hit the nail on the head.
Over the years I have met some right obnoxious clowns in the media business but Joe Duffy is without doubt one of the good guys.
He wasn't handed anything on a plate and had to work hard for everything he achieved.
He worked from the bottom up out in Montrose starting off as a researcher for the late great Gay Byrne who took Joe under his wing, and then going up through the ranks in a place riddled with jealousies and ego.
It was a genuine friendship between the Master and his student and Gay taught the young polite man everything he could about broadcasting.
Joe never for one second ever saw himself as a celebrity but as a journalist and broadcaster and he was bloody good at it.
He was part of a generation of hacks knocking around Dublin in the late eighties and nineties which included Paul Williams, the late Veronica Guerin, tabloid king Mick McNiffe, Eugene Masterson, Paul and Gerry Reynolds also from RTE.
I remember meeting Joe at the funeral of former Mirror man Jim Dunne in Howth. Dunne was a great reporter and writer who loved his job, a smoke and a drink. He was also a tennis nut. He and Joe had become good friends via Gaybo .
Joe had become famous by that stage but was as unassuming as ever when he came to pay his last respects.
Any time you'd meet Joe he would never pass you without saying 'hello', and enquiring if all was good with the world.
Joe has made the right decision to leave RTE and get out at the top. But I am sure it does not mean he is retiring just yet.
As Ryan Tubridy told him there is life outside of RTE and I am quite sure Joe will return to the microphone in the independent sector.
Liveline will continue without him but it won't be the same. He has left big shoes to fill.
RTE has now lost some real talent over the past few years - Sean O'Rourke, Tubs and now Joe Duffy, brilliant broadcasters who brought in a serious amount of advertising revenue.
I will be listening to Joe wherever he goes because let's face it he is the real deal, a real man of the people. The very best of luck to him whatever he does next. You did the State some service Joe.
What a day it was to be a Louth man at Croke Park at the weekend. We hadn't won a Leinster championship in 68 years and we finally got over the line and beat Meath in the final.
All the pain and anguish of those lost decades came pouring out when the hooter sounded and the match was over.
I cried my eyes out, hugging my son JP who had flown in from New York especially for the game.
I never saw so many happy Louth people in all my life when our captain Sam Mulroy lifted the Delaney Cup and our Gaelic football famine finally ended.
I kept thinking of my late father Johnny who had put his heart and soul into Louth football for many years of his life and all the times we went to Croker together to see Louth beat.
Last Sunday was one of those great days in my life and I will never forget it.
Fair play to the Meath people too who took their defeat with great class and dignity. They did not begrudge us this one.
Tánaiste Simon Harris' and the Media Minister Patrick O'Donovan's proposal to ban children under 16 from using social media is one of the best ideas I have ever heard.
They brought in such laws in Australia and New Zealand and they are working very well.
Social Media is the worst thing that ever happened in my mind and is having an appalling effect on young people.
As O'Donovan correctly says it is like the " Wild West " and needs to be regulated.
The amount of children I have heard about who killed themselves because they were bullied on social media is frightening..
There is no specific data but coroners will tell you, it is happening in every corner of Ireland.
The social media giants like META are all against it - well to hell with them.
One child bullying another online is not free speech and must be stopped. The only reasonable way is to ban the youngsters from social media altogether.
One of the saddest stories you will ever read was the sudden death of my fellow county woman Marie Claire Rogers from Togher, Co Louth while holidaying in Australia.
Her brave sister Grace told the hundreds of mourners at her funeral over the weekend how she did more in the two weeks before she passed away than most people did in their lifetime.
She went sky-diving, snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef and took a trip on a hot-air balloon .
But Grace said she also spent her last days on this earth with the people she loved the most: her boyfriend Paraic, her sister Heather and best friend Roisin. The young nurse will be terribly missed.
An Augustinian priest, the late Fr Jim Kiely had a huge influence on my life when I was growing up as a kid in Drogheda.
He gave many young people in the town a bit of faith and guided us away from trouble.
Our local Augustinian Church is still one of my favourite places to go to mass and I would have huge affection and respect for the order.
So suffice to say I was absolutely thrilled to learn that our new Pope Leo XIV is a member of the order.
I have a feeling that not only will he walk in the footsteps of Pope Francis but he will be one of the best Popes we will ever have.
This big public row in camogie about the players wearing skorts - or skirts wrapped around shorts is an absolute joke.
The players don't want to wear them and yet the sports bureaucrats think otherwise and refuse to let them play in the shorts.
The people who run camogie are living in the dark ages and would want to wise up.
The boss of Uisce Eireann - Irish Water to you and me - Niall Gleeson has warned that planning objections to big infrastructure developments are costing the State billions.
He is absolutely on the money. We can't have the tail wagging the dog in this country.
We need urgent new laws so that every new project that needs to be built in the national interest should not have to go through a planning process.
The last time I checked the politicians made the law of the land not the planners or judiciary
The people of Carrickmacross are not happy. Far too many migrants and immigrants were placed in their home town without any consultations with local people.
It has changed the dynamic in the town and the locals are very unhappy about the changes that are occurring because of it.
We need an immigration policy that will get the country the workers we need and yet not change our Irish way of life.
Putting hundreds of migrants into a small rural place like Carrick is insane. The Government needs to get a grip on immigration at 100 miles an hour.
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