{"id":201884,"date":"2025-11-26T21:42:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T21:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/201884\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T21:42:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T21:42:09","slug":"david-hanly-was-unique-broadcaster-and-man-of-integrity-memorial-service-told-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/201884\/","title":{"rendered":"David Hanly was \u2018unique\u2019 broadcaster and man of \u2018integrity\u2019, memorial service told \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The writer and long-serving RT\u00c9<\/a> presenter David Hanly was a \u201cunique\u201d broadcaster and a man \u201cof virtue and integrity\u201d, his memorial service in Dublin<\/a> was told.<\/p>\n

Hanly\u2019s son Sheerin said his father told him, when he was a boy: \u201cNever lose your integrity or your virtue to this world\u201d, before adding: \u201cNow I\u2019m off to the pub. Don\u2019t tell your mother.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was this virtue and integrity that made him the celebrated journalist that we grew to love,\u201d he said. \u201cHe used to come home in glee after dismantling a junior minister or a poor politician who wasn\u2019t prepped or ready for him. He was informed, he was intelligent and he was erudite.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was brutal, he was brilliant, he was cruel and he was funny. And he will be missed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hanly was addressing a service at St Jerome\u2019s Crematorium in Dublin on Wednesday to celebrate the life of his father, a native of Limerick<\/a>, who died last Friday, aged 81.<\/p>\n

The celebrant was RT\u00c9 broadcaster Shay Byrne<\/a> and mourners included Hanly\u2019s wife Yvonne, and several members of his family and extended family. His brother, singer Mick Hanly, performed during the service and his sister Anne read The Song of Wandering Aengus, a poem by WB Yeats. <\/p>\n

Mourners included Bob Collins and Cathal Goan, former directors general of RT\u00c9, and many retired and serving colleagues, including \u00dana Claffey, Se\u00e1n O\u2019Rourke, Cathal Mac Coille, Mary Wilson, \u00c1ine Lawlor, Eileen Dunne and David McCullagh. <\/p>\n

Singer Eleanor McEvoy, former Labour Party minister Pat Rabbitte and retired Court of Appeal judge Garrett Sheehan were also present. Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin was represented by his aide-de-camp. <\/p>\n

In his eulogy, Richard Crowley, who was among Hanly\u2019s co-presenters on RT\u00c9 radio\u2019s Morning Ireland between 1984 and 2001, said his friend and colleague was a man who appreciated the power and beauty of words. He was \u201cthe original dictionary\u201d, a man who was there not just to suggest or explain a word, but to preserve its meaning accurately.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0David Hanly: Broadcaster\u2019s richly rasping tones ensured RT\u00c9\u2019s Morning Ireland hit its strideOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Crowley recalled Hanly interviewing Cork Fianna F\u00e1il TD, Ned O\u2019Keeffe, who had called for a ban on the film Babe, about an orphaned talking pig, on the basis it might damage pork sales. \u201cHanly listened to him, the head went down, he looked over the glasses and all he said was: \u2018Deputy O\u2019Keeffe, you cannot be serious\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Known by the public for his distinctive voice and distinctive personality, Hanly was \u201cnot just unusual, he was unique\u201d. He had worked as a chief subeditor, a script writer, in public relations and was a novelist but was not ambitious about breaking a big news story, Crowley said. <\/p>\n

He was \u201cnot a prisoner of the news cycle, the journalist bubble, the mutually reinforcing value system that often defined and controlled what got covered and how it got covered\u201d.<\/p>\n

Hanly was there \u201cto ask other questions\u201d, why a particular story was being covered or why was it being covered in a particular way. \u201cIn his own quiet way, he sought different angles and to see news stories in a broader context.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was particularly proud to be the first journalist to interview poet Seamus Heaney after he won the Nobel Prize in Literature, Crowley said. <\/p>\n

Ideally, his friend would have only presented his television show, Hanly\u2019s People, which featured in-depth interviews, and the Poetry Programme, but he was \u201ctoo good\u201d on Morning Ireland for RT\u00c9 to let him go until he had to retire early after he became ill, Crowley said.<\/p>\n

The eulogy concluded with Crowley reading a scene, set in Hanly\u2019s favourite Dublin pub, Doheny and Nesbitt\u2019s, from Hanly\u2019s novel, In Guilt and in Glory. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The writer and long-serving RT\u00c9 presenter David Hanly was a \u201cunique\u201d broadcaster and a man \u201cof virtue and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[52,18,117,19,17,1844,1181,111371],"class_list":{"0":"post-201884","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-dublin","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-limerick","14":"tag-rte","15":"tag-shay-byrne"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115618181791874349","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}