Gabriel Mary Byrne (5 August 1934 – 4 November 2019) was an Irish presenter and host of radio and television. His most notable role was as the first host of The Late Late Show over a 37-year period spanning 1962 until 1999. The Late Late Show is the world's longest-running live chat show.[4] He was affectionately known as "Uncle Gay", "Gaybo" or "Uncle Gaybo". His time working in Britain with Granada Television saw him become the first person to introduce the Beatles on-screen, and Byrne was later the first to introduce Boyzone on-screen in 1993. According to Byrne, Paul McCartney asked him to be the Beatles' agent during a sound check for his show but he declined the offer.
From 1973 until 1998, Byrne presented The Gay Byrne Hour – later The Gay Byrne Show when it expanded to two hours – on RTÉ Radio 1 each weekday morning. After retiring from his long-running radio and television shows, Byrne presented several other programmes, including Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, The Meaning of Life and For One Night Only on RTÉ One and Sunday Serenade/Sunday with Gay Byrne on RTÉ lyric fm. In 2006, he was elected Chairman of Ireland's Road Safety Authority. In his retirement he was described as the "Elder Lemon of Irish broadcasting".
In 2010, The Irish Times said Byrne was "unquestionably the most influential radio and television man in the history of the Irish State". He was approached to run in the 2011 Irish presidential election but declined to run, despite topping early opinion polls.
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