Gay Byrne talks to action film hero Colin Farrell, who speaks of topics such as his father and his addictions, as well as what has shaped his beliefs about faith, spirituality and the bigger questions about life.
Interview with Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams, who spoke of the process of concluding resentment, indignation or anger as a result of a perceived offence, difference or mistake, and ceasing to demand punishment or restitution, the great unknown, Final Judgment and how his beliefs have affected his life as a republican.
Maeve Binchy, who speaks of losing her beliefs as a Roman Catholic during a journey to Jerusalem as a young adult, describing it as "the Road to Damascus experience in reverse".
Ronan Keating, who was described by Byrne as "a revelation" after the episode. Keating speaks of his disagreements with his manager Louis Walsh, the death of his mother from cancer and the Marie Keating Foundation which resulted.
Sinéad O'Connor, who speaks of her views about the deity of her belief system and how this affects her artistic output.In this interview, she talks at length about the difference between God and Religion: many religions seem to want to “hold God hostage” and do all sorts of unspeakable things in his name – violence, prejudice, exclusion, etc. Although she says she has a strong personal relationship with Jesus, she says it doesn’t really matter to her whether he existed as a human being, as portrayed in the Gospels. To her, Jesus’s significance is spiritual, not historical.
Writer and filmmaker Neil Jordan states his view that life continues after the permanent termination of the biological functions that define a living organism. Jordan recalled his father telling him he would return after death and their subsequent post-death encounter during a stormy fixed-wing aircraft flight.
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.
Gay Byrne interviews fellow veteran broadcaster Terry Wogan about his thoughts on ageism, religion and a life which has had its highs and lows, its moments of tragedy, laughter and success. Terry Wogan – or Sir Terry, as he points out he’s perfectly entitled to call himself – kicks off the series on 26th September. He begins by revealing how, during his Limerick upbringing, the Jesuits and Redemptorists did their best to put the fear of God into him. “You were always committing sin. You know, pick your nose, you’re committing a sin… And going into confession, you used to make up sins so that you weren’t wasting the priest’s time. Ridiculous!” Despite that background – or perhaps because of it – Terry is not a believer now, though he respects those who do have what he calls “the gift of faith,” including his wife, Helen. Wogan speaks movingly about the death of his first child, Vanessa, and acknowledges that, while his wife found consolation in her Catholic faith, he never could. Gay and Terry discuss a lifetime career in broadcasting, what he feels was the secret of his success and how his thoughts on what matters in life have changed over time.
Emmy and IFTA-winning actress, Fionnula Flanagan, reveals to Gay Byrne how her moral compass owes much more to her ex-communicated, alcoholic revolutionary father than to the nuns who educated her. She also talks candidly about her own battle with drink; about acting as a vocation; and about the God she believes in… and the one she doesn’t. Fionnula Flanagan grew up in Dublin. Her mother was a fairly conventional, practising Catholic, but her father was a revolutionary, who had fought against Franco’s Fascists in the Spanish Civil War. He returned, not only wounded, but ex-communicated by the Catholic Church, and that instilled in him a bitter resentment of priests. Nonetheless, Fionnula was educated mainly at Catholic schools – Holy Faith, Whitehall; Scoil Mhuire and Scoil Chaitríona – and still has tremendous respect for the nuns who taught her. Even so, she doesn’t share the faith they tried to instil in her and certainly not their trust in the institutional Church.
Dr. Deepak Chopra’s journey from a Hindu/Catholic childhood in Delhi, via Western medicine in Boston, to his current position as the world’s most prolific and best-selling author on spiritual matters, was never going to yield conventional answers to life’s big questions. Gay Byrne discovers that the self-styled “quack,” who has sold over 20 million copies of his sixty books and who has Oprah, Obama, Prince Charles, and Madonna on speed-dial, has plenty to say about why spirituality needs rescuing from religion… and why he’s no fan of Richard Dawkins.
Gay Byrne talks to Rev Ian Paisley about the staunch upbringing and firm beliefs that made him Ulster's "Dr No." Ian Paisley is a preacher turned politician who played a controversial yet important role in Northern Ireland's Troubles and the subsequent peace. As Northern Ireland descended into sectarian violence in the late 1960s, Paisley emerged as protester-in-chief of anything he perceived to threaten its status as part of the United Kingdom. Paisley would ultimately end his political career as the First Minister of Northern Ireland, sharing power with the republican Sinn Féin party he had long opposed. He resigned as First Minister and leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in 2008 and was made a life peer two years later.
Micheál Ó Muicheartaigh’s decision to retire from GAA commentary after 61 years offers a chance to reflect on a life steeped in faith from the start. From station Masses in Dingle and his dying mother’s last words to his thoughts on the after-life, he tells Gay Byrne how that life shaped his beliefs…and vice versa. Not that he has any plans to meet his maker just yet, firmly hoping that it will be another fifty years before the Bainisteoir in the sky calls him from the field.
This week Gay Byrne talks to Eurovision Song Contest Winner Dana about growing in Derry, her political career and her unwavering faith which has sustained her throughout her life.
First in the chair is Gay’s long-time friend and former colleague, Sir Michael Parkinson. The two of them worked together in the early days of Granada TV, including the night The Beatles made their television debut. Paul McCartney asked Parky for his autograph… for his Mum. The band also asked the young Gay Byrne to manage them. He said ‘No’! Other topics that Gay and Michael discuss are his turbulent marriage, his journey from being a South Yorkshire Sunday School teacher to agnostic Grand Old Man of broadcasting, his battle with drink, and if he believes that one day he’ll find himself at the pearly gates...
Brendan O’Carroll tells Gay Byrne, the man who discovered him, how much his TV character Mrs Brown owes to his Mum, an ex-nun, pioneering Labour T.D. and widowed mother of eleven. In a frank and revealing interview, he talks about how failure taught him to succeed; how his baby son’s death taught him about life; and why he’s confident he’ll go to heaven.
Gay Byrne has wanted to interview Mark Patrick Hederman ever since they appeared on a radio programme together in 2009. The Abbot of Glenstal is a paradox: a priest who never wanted to be a priest, who freely describes the Church to which he has given his life as “a dinosaur”. Expect the unexpected, as Gay asks him life’s big questions.
Kilkenny GAA legend, Brian Cody tells Gay Byrne why he’s never been tempted to leave the faith – or for that matter, the county – of his upbringing. He also explains what winning and losing at sport have taught him about life… and why he never prays to win.
On a day when his son, Charlie, appeared to be committing career suicide, Martin Sheen spoke to Gay Byrne with remarkable openness about his family, his faith and his film career – three strands which come together in his latest movie, The Way. Having nearly died of his own excesses during the making of Apocalypse Now, Sheen describes how that near-miss was the start of a journey back to the Catholicism of his youth, a faith rooted as much in radical activism as piety, which has brought a welcome sense of humility, balance and purpose to his other life as a movie-star.
Even before the Moriarty tribunal had branded his behaviour “profoundly corrupt”, Ben Dunne admitted to Gay Byrne he’d been “a complete eejit” in his past dealings with politicians. His colourful life has included several brushes with death, an IRA kidnapping, a chequered relationship with Charlie Haughey (not to mention a different sort of Charlie) and more money than was good for him. And yet he reveals how it was the infamous events in a Florida hotel room that finally put him on the road to redemption.
Gay Byrne discusses religion and spirituality with Andrea Corr, lead vocalist of the band The Corrs. Generally, Andrea Corr hates doing interviews, but flew in specially at her own expense for this one because of the man asking the questions. Andrea talks candidly to Gay Byrne about the difficulties of establishing a singing and acting career away from The Corrs; describes herself as a religious “junkie”; and reveals what she really thinks about her brother Jim’s eccentric conspiracy theories.
The Chieftains’ front man, Paddy Moloney, bears his soul to Gay Byrne, revealing how he once had a vision, while playing at Ground Zero, after 9/11. He relates the secret of his band’s longevity – separate tables, separate airline seats and separate hotel floors! – and explains why, despite trotting the globe, he still feels most at home in the Wicklow hills.
Fr. Shay Cullen’s work to protect women, children and the poor from exploitation and sex trafficking in the Philippines has earned him three Nobel Peace Prize nominations. But it has also attracted an on-going series of death threats, which, following the recent murder of a fellow missionary, he takes seriously. Here, the turbulent priest speaks his mind to Gay Byrne about the faith that motivates him to keep going in the face of evil.
Gay Byrne talks to non-believer, entrepreneur and adventurer Richard Branson. “I’ve never actually seen myself as a businessman, strangely.” Sir Richard Branson’s interview with Gay Byrne is full of surprises and contradictions. A non-believer, who envies the faith of his friends, Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter; the founder of a planet-saving “Carbon War Room”, whose own planes are burning up the atmosphere; and an adventurer whose lust for life has nearly cost him his own.
Gay Byrne has interviewed Bob Geldof many times, but having recently turned 60, the original Boomtown Rat was particularly revealing in this interview about the people, things and ideas which have given his life meaning. He insists there’s no God, nor even a God-shaped hole. Rage is still his “great animus”, compounded by the nagging pain of accumulated grief. But he’s also found happiness – a shock even to himself, which he describes in language as colourfully and brilliantly articulate as ever.
Mary Byrne doesn’t really do secrets. In a compelling interview with her hero, Gay Byrne, she tells him her way of handling what has been an eventful and colourful life, is to talk openly about everything. With Gay, she discusses with astonishing openness the way her life’s experiences have shaped her beliefs and values… and vice versa. She reveals how her parents were, in very different ways, her role models: her father, because he was a hard-working “saint” and her mother, because Mary was determined to learn from all her many mistakes. Mary saw how her Mum wasted her singing talent and became determined not to do the same.
For the 14 years of her presidency, Mary McAleese was obliged to keep her faith and opinions private and separate from her public role. Now, in her first televised interview since leaving office, in her home on the banks of the Shannon, she speaks to Gay Byrne with extraordinary candour about how her life has shaped – and been shaped by – her beliefs and attitudes. Like a great many committed Catholics, she finds herself clinging on by her finger-tips to membership of the Catholic Church. Her faith is not in question. She meditates and goes to Mass daily; she goes on annual retreat to a convent in Ennis; Christianity is at the core of everything in her life. However, all too often, she finds that faith at odds with the structures and leadership of the Church which, she has always been taught, is the body of Christ. Not only does she feel that voices like hers are not being listened to in her Church, they are being actively silenced in a culture of “creeping infallibility.” Her book and this interview is a critique of that culture, but it is also a direct plea to the Pope to change the way the Church is run.
Former Oasis frontman – and now High Flying Bird – Noel Gallagher, talks to Gay Byrne about the things he believes in… and the things he doesn’t; plus the thoughts that make him forget his own lyrics on stage. Noel is relaxed about the fact that, having been part of the biggest band on the planet at one stage, he’s now ploughing a humbler furrow. He talks about the buzz of performing as “the ultimate high” …and having tried a few other kinds, he should know. He talks freely about his past escapades with drugs, which were pretty well a full-time pursuit until the moment he decided to stop. He talks to Gay about his brother and their famously difficult relationship and current rift.
In his first televised interview since last year’s presidential campaign, Sean Gallagher tells Gay Byrne what gave an almost-blind schoolboy failure the self-belief to run for the highest office in the land, and how he has coped with the disappointment of becoming last year’s nearly man. After several months in the spotlight, Gallagher has been more or less invisible in the months since. He reveals that he and his wife, Trish, spent a few days at a Carmelite monastery in Sligo after the election, meditating, walking and getting to know one another again. Now she has persuaded him to move to her home county of Cork and the Monaghan-born, Cavan-raised, previously Louth-based businessman says he is happy enough to pull on the red jersey of the Rebel County. A year after he came so close to winning the presidency, he tries to be philosophical. Ah, but would he go again?
One of Ireland’s most successful and best loved footballers, Niall Quinn, tells Gay how a mixture of faith, family and luck enabled him to “swim in the river without getting wet” in a sport that was rife with drink and gambling. Quinn admits he found the transition from player to ex-player tough, but hid his depression from all but his family. The death, last year, of Quinn’s close friend, Gary Speed – who hanged himself in his garage – clearly shook Niall to the core, especially given his own similar reputation as one of the game’s great optimists and gentlemen. An occasion when Niall undoubtedly demonstrated that his own priorities were in order was his testimonial, when he famously donated all the £1m+ proceeds to Crumlin Children’s Hospital, GOAL and to Sunderland-based charities. Tellingly, he reveals that, though the gesture wouldn’t have happened without his wife Gillian’s support and encouragement, the inspiration came from his Mum.
Norah Casey is one of Ireland’s leading businesswomen and in October 2011, the love of her life, her husband Richard, died of cancer. In this profoundly moving interview, she tells Gay Byrne how her Catholic faith has both been challenged and also sustained her, in the year since.
Multi award-winning writer, Colm Tóibín, is not a believer, but keeps returning to religious subjects in his work. Gay asks him why.
JP Donleavy’s novel The Ginger Man has been called one of the 20th centuries 100 most influential novels. And yet, on publication, it was widely banned as a debauched and decadent text. Gay Byrne talks to the 86-year-old Irish American writer about his origins in the Bronx and the experiences, ideas and beliefs that have shaped his work.
Gay Byrne interviews John Lonergan about the values and beliefs which shaped – and were shaped by – his career in Irish prisons and discovers a man more committed to the ethics of Christianity than to its creed.
In criminal parlance, Gay Byrne and Maureen Gaffney have got “previous.” The UCD Clinical Psychologist was once a regular on his RTÉ radio show, establishing her as one of Ireland’s most respected voices of informed good sense. However, she rarely talks about herself, so this is a welcome opportunity to hear what gives her life meaning.
Award-winning actor and singer, Maria Doyle Kennedy, talks to Gay Byrne about music, motherhood and commitments - marital, religious and cinematic - and the other things that give her life meaning.
Christina Noble reveals to Gay the extraordinary events and inspiration that led her, as a formerly homeless Dublin child rape victim, to devote her life to helping Asian street children.
In a unique, in-depth interview between two Irish legends, Bono talks to Gay Byrne about the life that has shaped his beliefs and values and the values and beliefs that have shaped his life.
Musical star, Colm Wilkinson, reveals why an absence of faith never stopped him singing his most famous song – the prayer, Bring Him Home from Les Miserables, which was written for him – with total conviction.
Emily O'Reilly the new European Ombudsman may be upwardly mobile and Strasbourg bound, but she’s scared stiff of lifts and aeroplanes. That’s just one of the surprising revelations, as the former journalist, once labelled “Blonde ambition” by PJ Mara, reveals to Gay Byrne a complex and thoughtful attitude to career, family, morality and faith.
Fr Peter McVerry tells Gay Byrne how that work and the homeless inspire, motivate and fulfil him and why the Church has much to learn from the poor about the real point of Christianity.
Gay Byrne talks to soprano Celine Byrne about her quest to balance a meaningful and fulfilling personal life with a jet-set international musical career.
You can take the girl out of the Liberties, but you can’t take the Liberties out of the girl. Dublin’s rockabilly darling, Imelda May tells Gaybo about the things, people, events and beliefs that give her life meaning.
Cancer survivor Majella O'Donnell talks about her upbringing, her family and faith, her first marriage and what it’s like to be Mrs Daniel O’Donnell.
Gay Byrne talks to Rory O’Neill, better known as Panti Bliss. Mayo’s famous drag artist, whose parents are devout Catholics, is full of surprises, including his willingness to go the barricades to defend his Christian critics’ freedom of speech.
Irish American ex-Dragon Sean O’Sullivan has made hundreds of millions, not only through his own IT designs, he coined the term “cloud computing” and invented map apps for mobile phones, but also through venture capitalism. But, having been raised in poverty by a devoutly Catholic mother, he tells Gay he is more interested in values than profits and spends his life trying to give back to the world more than he takes from it.
Eamon Dunphy tells Gay Byrne about the people, events and beliefs that have shaped his life and values. The former Manchester United and Ireland player reveals hidden depths and surprising levels of emotion.
Oscar-winning movie producer, Lord David Puttnam, talks to Gay Byrne in his adopted home in Skibbereen, West Cork, explaining how the memory of being a total failure at school instilled his passion for better education.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny guards his private life carefully for such a public figure. And yet his beliefs and values have both shaped, and been shaped by, his political life. In a rare personal interview, he talks to Gay Byrne about the people, events, ideas and beliefs that give his life meaning
Cecila Ahern talks to Gay Byrne about growing up with Bertie
In a special extended episode, recorded in the former Dublin home of his idol, Oscar Wilde, shortly before his recent marriage to Elliot Spencer, Stephen Fry talks to Gay Byrne with astonishing frankness about his childhood, his career, his criminal past and drug habit, his sexuality and the bi-polar condition that gave rise to depression and two suicide attempts, before a combination of medication and a loving relationship brought him to a much happier state. A convinced atheist, he believes his life has no more meaning than the universe itself, but sees that as a liberation, not a curse, and all the more reason to live life to the full.
Barry McGuigan talks to Gay about his strong Catholic faith.
Mary Black talks about her disillusion with the Church, her struggles with depression and her mystical experiences.
Earl Spencer talks for the first time about his sister Diana’s tragic death.
Dr Rowan Williams talks about his controversial time as Archbishop of Canterbury, his infamy in the tabloids over his view on Islam and his deep personal faith.
Gay Byrne talks to Hozier whose hit 'Take me to Church' has made him a worldwide star.
Joan Burton talks to Gay Byrne about adoption, her early influences, politics and morality.
Diarmuid Gavin, the man who turned garden design into the new rock ‘n’ roll, invites Gaybo into his own back garden – where better? – to talk about the events, ideas, values and beliefs that give his life meaning.
Gay Byrne deftly explores the life, beliefs and values of Prof. Richard Dawkins, the High Priest of atheist rationalism and author of The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion.
Gay Byrne talks to Sr Stanislaus Kennedy about her life-long commitment to the poor as well as her criticisms of an overly clerical church.
Gay Byrne’s guest is Mindfulness Guru, Eckhart Tolle, author of ‘The Power of Now’, who has been deemed the ‘most influential spiritual author in the USA’.
The host chats to Ruby Wax about her Jewish upbringing in America, her comedy career and her battle with depression, as well as discussing her recent writing and performing projects.
The host chats to Anna May McHugh, president of the National Ploughing Association, about her spiritual beliefs and love of rural life and agriculture.
The host chats to folk singer Dolores Keane about her struggles to overcome depression, alcoholism and breast cancer.
The host chats to Eoin Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl books, about his spiritual beliefs.
Presenter Gay Byrne talks to rabbi, philosopher and former Jewish religious leader Jonathan Sacks about his spiritual beliefs.
The host chats to Peter Sutherland, the United Nations' special representative for migration about his spiritual beliefs and how his political views have shaped international relations.
John Sheahan, the last man standing from The Dubliners’ legendary line-up, returned to the place that inspired his famous Marino Waltz and spoke to Gay Byrne.
Garry Hynes, Tony award winning theatre director and founder of Druid Theatre Company, shares her views on life and matters spiritual.
There’s music, waltzes, laughter and a unique insight into the life and love, beliefs and values of the Dutch Master showman and violinist, André Rieu.
Meet the youngest ever guest on The Meaning of Life, Joanne O'Riordan, whose extraordinary life, achievements and attitudes will truly inspire
Shaykq Al Quadri, The Meaning of Life’s first Muslim guest, tells Gay how his Pakistani roots and Dutch upbringing shaped his commitment to peaceful co-existence, not in spite of Islam, but because of it
Archbishop Charles J. Brown, the New York-born Papal Nuncio – the Vatican’s Ambassador to Ireland – reveals how a Himalayan trek in his twenties ignited his faith and vocation
