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BROADCASTER BILL O’HERLIHY has died suddenly.
The presenter, who was a household name for decades, died overnight. The cause of his death has not yet been announced.
His friends and colleagues at RTE and Insight Consultants are said to be ‘in a state of deep shock’ at the news.
He had attended the IFTAs at the Mansion House in Dublin last night.
The 76-year-old was best known for his work as the presenter of RTE’s football coverage since the early 1970s. During his time at the broadcaster, he covered ten World Cups and ten Olympic Games.
He retired from RTE after the World Cup last summer.
“Everyone at RTE is devastated at today’s news,” said Noel Curran, the Director-General of RTE. “Bill O’Herlihy was a giant of the sporting and broadcasting worlds in this country.”
BIll won a Jacob’s award for his presentation of the 1990 World Cup, and was Irish Sports Journalist of the Year 2003. In 2007 he was named the Irish Film and Television Academy’s Television Personality of the Year.
He was working on a new show for RTE One at the time of his death.
“He never hid his emotions on… big occasions, from disappointment to utter joy, and for this he was greatly loved,” said Noel Curran.
But he was also a fantastic broadcaster and interviewer, getting the best out of his interview panels and provoking debate and insight, and for this he was also hugely admired.
His colleagues at Insight Consultants, which merged with O’Herlihy Communications earlier this year, said they were “deeply shocked and saddened” by his death.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny was among those who paid tribute to the legendary presenter at the launch of his autobiography in 2012, saying that Bill displayed “the same professionalism, the same level of dedication and preparation for the job” that he had since he began his career in the 1970s.
The legendary presenter began his career as a journalist at the Irish Examiner – then known as the Cork Examiner – while in his teens. He left to work for an RTE programme about rural Ireland, before transferring to the current affairs section where he reported on the ground-breaking and controversial 7 Days programme.
He found his natural home in the sports section of RTE, where he worked for more than forty years. He left RTE for a time to found his own PR company, O’Herlihy Communications, and to briefly consider a career in politics with Fine Gael, but always came back to sports.
Hanging up his RTÉ Sport mic after last summer’s World Cup final, the host paid warm tribute to his longtime colleagues, John Giles, Eamon Dunphy and Liam Brady – before signing-off with his trademark catchphrase.
“I take my leave with so many great memories through more than 40 years of sports broadcasting,” O’Herlihy said.
“I’ve been lucky to be part of a huge, positive development in RTÉ sports coverage that got so many great occasions to the public but my work on soccer, and most especially with the Three Amigos here, has been the great highlight of my career.
“Eamon and I have soldiered together since the 70s, John since the 80s and Liam from the 90s. You’ve brought knowledge, insight, controversy and greatly importantly, a sense of fun to our coverage which by any measurement has been outstandingly successful.
Of course we’ve had our differences like when I sometimes lost the run of myself and imagined I was an analyst rather than an anchor and I got very much put in my place, but I’ve had so much fun over the years, learned so much about football and frankly, and there’s no doubt about this, I have piggybacked on the talent of these three gentlemen.
Through working with them I have been privileged to serve you, the viewer, and you have been astonishingly generous down through the years. I thank you for that.
At the launch of his autobiography in 2012, Bill O’Herlihy paid tribute to his wife Hillary and his daughters Jill and Sally, as well as his family and friends.
“I am the luckiest man in the world,” he said. “The Lord has really been good to me”.
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He is being paid for doing nothing with license payers money.
@Peter McCormack: hasn’t that always been the case!?
@Peter McCormack: he owes me and every license holder in the country €2.70. The price of an ice cream and I want my ice cream….
@Peter McCormack: I’m probably in the minority here but this story has been blown out of all proportion. They interrupted new shows today for live feed from the committee hearing. Yeah it’s a scandal and heads should roll but some of the commentary is over the top.
Check out Tubridy’s 1st cousins take on it, its hilarious
https://youtu.be/8VNIP4TtNIw
@Peter McCormack:
Look at the toy show ratings .. all that money for RTE
@Peter McCormack:, same can be said for Dail Eireann performers.
People should now not renew there television licence .
@Kevin: I’ll do it, are you all behind me?
@Jonny Spuds: Check out Tubridy’s 1st cousins take on it, its hilarious
https://youtu.be/8VNIP4TtNIw
@Kevin: Isn’t the TV Licence on the way out and being replaced by something else like a communication fee that every household will have to pay. If you have a tv/ipad/laptop/computer/iPhone etc etc. Once you have access to the Internet or streaming sites on any device that’s that. Bit like property tax and will probable fall on our friendly Revenue to collect.
Seems like contractors in RTÉ get all the benefits of permanency and none of the drawbacks
@Mick Duvanny: in summary, “we the plebs…”
The brass neck of that wagon Dee Forbes.
€305k annually between salary, car allowance and pension contributions yet she hasn’t the respect to face the music and answer questions at the PAC, who are acting on behalf of the taxpayer and licence fee payer.
Shame on her.
Think I’m going to quit my job tomorrow and expect to be paid after
@Michael: He didn’t quit, RTE have told him he can’t do his radio show until further notice, not his fault or issue.
@WiseUp: he is a self-employed contractor. He isn’t doing any work at the moment, why should he continue getting paid?
@Monika B K: It looks like a case of bogus self employment for purely tax purposes
@Michael: Check out Tubridy’s 1st cousins take on it, its hilarious
https://youtu.be/8VNIP4TtNIw
@Monika B K: Would come down to the terms of the contract ultimately.
@Monika B K: Contract
A true story, a few years ago I worked for a well known Thai food chain and had to deliver a meal out to Turbridy. He was staying in Milltown so probably Aoibhinn’s gaff at the time. The bill came to €9.80 and he gave me a tenner, then told me to keep the change. I was fuming, thinking, this miserable c… is on €10K a week and tips me with 20c. I posted the change in his letterbox and drove off.
@Abdul Abhaile: Excellent
And the generous license fee payer just keeps on giving.
It seems the board of RTE love their job title but don’t have a clue how run a business, contracts, invoices, cash payments. The 3 monkey’s come to mind, hear no evil, see no evil speak no evil, just bury it and hopefully the auditors won’t notice.
RTE……Ryan Tubridy’s Euros.
@Abdul Abhaile:
Pat Kenny lost his show because he helped SF IRA attack sean gallagher
now tubs is in trouble . LOL
Great country
Funny …is that in his lapsed contract?
Whole organisation should be disbanded
Now is the time to ask why people like Duffy, O’Callaghan, Byrne etc are being paid huge disproportionate wages by RTÉ .€70K would be more than enough , some might argue too much. Their earnings for part time work all exceed €250K . That is in addition to their other earnings from appearances etc which I’m sure is not pittance.
Blah, blah, blah, He should not be receiving any wages from them, that is feckin ridiculous, would you or I receive a wage from our boss when we no longer have a contract with them while waiting for new employment.. I don’t think so
His brother is my neurologist and I can categorically say my neuro does not get paid that salary.
It gets better and better .Definetly a movie in thrre now.Could be blockbuster.
He could get up to 1m goodbye money, Dee as well!
@Toby:
Eamon Dunphy was hilarious last night on tv3 he looked so bitter
Drop his new contract offer to 20k a year.
WHAT????? That man should be dismissed immediately!
@Richard Starling: what exactly did he do wrong? As an employer, what grounds would you have to sack him?
Bet he gets paid for the remainder of his full contract and it will be kept under wraps!
You couldn’t make this stuff up!
Koukliahills is that you Ryan or his agent. As for everybody loving Ryan last month really. As for talented broadcasting is talking via a microphone. Most people can broadcast. His contract has ended so he should not be paid since the contract ended. It is simple.
@rory Mcgovern: no its not Ryan, its someone whos watching a nation behave like a pack of sheep of which you are one! Nobody seems to have had an issue with him for the last 14 years and if they did, they certainly didnt call for his cancellation. Ireland is full of mob types who only feel safe when baying in large groups.
Hes not the problem, RTE is!
And furthermore why dont you pop down to RTE and see if you can replace him, seeing as you’re such a talented individual or at the very least go and stand outside RTE with a banner repeating what your saying here instead of being “A Hurler from the ditch”
Tip of iceberg me thinks,jayzus you’d be morto ” did you see dem documents “
You just could not write this stuff. Unbelievable
@Joanne Stokes:
SF/IRA asking any one else to own up .. that is hilarious .
Look everyone is upset he shouldn’t be paid his ridiculous fees but that was his contract …..but a salary cap needs to be introduced now – if people are unhappy leave or run ur contract down then leave there will be people to step in
RTE is a cosy cartel where the in-crowd cut sweetheart deals for themselves at the expense of the license-paying public. If RT wasn’t part of that set he’d be stacking shelves in Tesco.
@Tony Murphy:
Cartel : an association of manufacturers or suppliers with the purpose of maintaining prices at a high level and restricting competition.
How bad can this go? But they won’t crawl their way out of this one, As for Tubs, just get rid, too much money, bleeding RTE.
@Áine G:
it was in Lillie’s where i often saw you Ryan
you never saw me with cocaine though
i never **SAW** you with cocaine because you’re very clever Ryan
you were sayin Eamon ..
Are you changing the subject Ryan ?
Fair dues to him, ye’d all do it.
MOB rule. Begrudgery at full pelt. Blame the paymaster and their incompetence. Incredible to watch this unfold. #shame. This is a decent human whom we all loved last month. Everyone needs to relax and point thier hate somewhere else. Its not illigal to be talented , or is this now another thing? At what point will the MOB stop?
@Koukliahills: you call what he does as talent.. please.. If it wasn’t for the script writers he would be clueless as he is useless
@Maire Morrison: an exact example of MOB rule. Sure we will give you his schedule and see how you go ??
@Koukliahills: people voicing their annoyance and disgust at our national broadcaster over the shady goings on is not something I would class as mob rule, however if Mr Tubridy was the victim of an assault that got out of control with people screaming and shouting at him(something I do not or would not condone) over this scandal then that would be to me “mob rule”.
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