In the face of horror, Claire Byrne is calm, Ryan Tubridy uncharacteristically emotional

As a current affairs presenter, one of Claire Byrne’s key assets is her sangfroid. No matter how tough the topic, she’s not easily thrown. So it’s unusual indeed to hear her sounding distinctly unnerved on Tuesday’s programme (Today with Claire Byrne, RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), as she gingerly introduces an item guaranteed to cause shudders among her audience. “Parents are dreading the possible return of a little visitor on their children’s heads,” she says. “Head lice.”

In a week when parental nightmares of the most unspeakable variety dominate the headlines, scalp-dwelling parasites seem more like a symbol of benign normality. But it’s a timelessly icky subject that clearly gets under Byrne’s skin, though not – as she makes clear – in her hair. “Thinking about this I’ve had itchy hair for the past 24 hours,” she says. “I don’t have nits, but it does create the sensation of itching, which I’m sure our listeners are experiencing right now.”

Sure enough, it’s hard to resist a surreptitious scratch during her viscerally mesmerising discussion with writer Sophie White and GP Dr Amy Morgan. White revels in recounting her family’s battle with nits, laughing about “shearing” her sons’ heads and vividly describing the detritus found among the follicles: “The eggs look like dark sesame seeds.” Morgan offers a more scientific viewpoint, albeit no less graphic: “The itching is the reaction to the saliva from these lovely little guys,” she breezily informs her host. Meanwhile, Byrne insists that “we’ve never had nits in our family”, though her tone is one of forlorn resignation rather than hubris, as White wickedly recognises: “You’re just inviting the universe to mess with you.”

Of course, the discussion acts as a much-needed distraction from what Byrne calls the “absolutely horrific” events in Tallaght. The murders of twins Christy and Chelsea Cawley and their older sister Lisa Cash are so darkly unimaginable that the news of Liz Truss’s credulity-defying elevation to British prime minister comes as a welcome diversion. Byrne calibrates her approach accordingly, framing her questions sensitively when speaking to local Fianna Fáil councillor Theresa Costello about the atmosphere following the killings.

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“There’s no words,” Costello replies, “It’s so hard to make sense of what’s happened, because there is no sense behind it.” It’s a theme that Byrne picks up on when talking to jockey Davy Russell about the tragic horse racing death of Jack de Bromhead, teenage son of trainer Henry de Bromhead: “Much like what happened in Tallaght, it’s difficult to talk about this,” she notes.

Byrne’s low-key mood highlights that for all her phlegmatic on-air manner, she is a naturally considerate host when covering dreadful events, and as uncomfortable as the rest of us. Her coolly modulated register only kicks in when dealing with less traumatic issues, such as the winter energy crunch or the latest entrant through Downing Street’s revolving doors. In such instances, the host marshals the facts in reliable, pointedly undramatic manner.

While Byrne deserves her reputation for calm thoroughness, her show’s strength increasingly lies in its lighter items. Her news pieces can sometime have a dutiful air to them, but the presenter sounds like she’s actually enjoying herself during lifestyle segments, such as her discussion on the impact of sibling birth order. When guest Dr Harry Barry talks about youngest children having poor self-discipline, Byrne (a middle child, as she tells us) can’t help sympathising: “Gosh, the poor youngest child is getting the holly.” As with her chat on nits, the atmosphere is appealingly lively. She’s never going to be a tabloid shock jock, but during a harrowing week, it’s a tonic to hear Byrne letting her hair down.

As the appalling enormity of the Tallaght murders emerges, it proves too much for Ryan Tubridy (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays). On Mondays, the presenter usually regales his listeners with green-room titbits from the previous Friday’s Late Late Show, whether they want it or not. On this occasion, however, Tubridy is in subdued form, as one would expect following the awful reports on Morning Ireland. “It’s been a relentless tale of terror and sadness coming from the airwaves,” the host observes, mercifully adding that he’s not going to dwell on the details.

Gut-churning grief

But he doesn’t move on from the subject. Instead, he ruminates on the lives cut short, talking about the “divilment” he detects in photos of the young twins, while attempting to comprehend the gut-churning grief of the bereaved. “Is there any greater cruelty than the murder of three children?” he plaintively asks.

That Tubridy’s emotion is sincere is obvious. True, as someone who is regularly thrust into the role of emollient confidant on both his TV and radio shows, it’s a story he cannot avoid. But there’s no artifice to the crack in his voice as he reads out heartfelt texts on the matter. On several occasions, he has to take a break to regain his composure, sounding a note of sheepish contrition for his lapse in professionalism. “You would think I would be a bit more able for it all, but sometimes it just gets you.”

It’s a jolting display of vulnerability from a broadcaster whose common-sense editorialising sometimes comes across as smoothly inoffensive, all the more resonant for being so raw and unfiltered. His equilibrium only returns when speaking to Kevin Shortall, principal of the Tallaght school attended by the Cawley twins. Perhaps paradoxically, the host sounds more comfortable talking about the tragedy with others than being alone with his own thoughts.

By Tuesday, he’s back to his chirpy self – somehow, life goes on. But Tubridy’s uncharacteristic outpouring remains a memorable manifestation of the human decency and community values he regularly espouses, and a necessary one too.