Ryan Tubridy in fine fettle as he launches ‘Finucane’ book

Former RTÉ presenter Ryan Tubridy was in excellent form as he launched Finucane & Me: My Life with Marian by Ms Finucane’s widower, John Clarke.

Explaining the book was both a story of love and a story of grief, Tubridy said it was not one he should have read in a coffee shop, realising that as he read, his eyes had teared up, leaving him embarrassed and wondering what people would think of him.

Along with a remark that he was “a little rusty”, and agreeing with a well-intentioned heckler that he was “a little out of practice”, the references were as close as he came to mentioning his recent spat with RTÉ.

Earlier, as The Irish Times asked if we could have a few words, he deployed his trademark charm, saying: “I am saying nothing.” Then perhaps realising that was not a good line from someone who was about to make a speech, he drew his finger along the title of John Clarke’s memoir, saying: “I am talking only about him.”

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Launching the book, he told family and friends of Ms Finucane and Clarke that he had wondered why he had been asked to do the honours. He said although he knew Ms Finucane, he did not know her or Clarke very well. He said he had promised Clarke he would keep his remarks brief, but Clarke had responded: “You will bloody not. You will keep it as long as humanly possible, so I don’t have to be up there where you are. That’s why you are here.”

Tubridy described Finucane & Me: My Life with Marian as a love story of “two warriors” which was also a story of grief. Clarke had been searingly honest and had written a beautiful book, including in it the story of Clarke’s drinking and his battle with alcohol. Tubridy said there was a part of the book, in which Clarke was in St John of Gods for treatment when a doctor had told him and a class of about 24 patients that only three or four of them would live.

Tubridy said: “I got to the end of that sentence and those words were spoken to you by Dr Patrick Tubridy, my father.”

It was, he said, a very emotional moment and was the section of the book he had been reading in the coffee shop when he teared up. “I was carried out of that coffee shop,” he joked. He said people were probably thinking: “The man has lost it, we thought he would.”

Clarke told the launch he was considering becoming a Buddhist. He was, he said, convinced he knew nothing. “I don’t have any answers,” he said. But “as a former salesman” he encouraged those present to “buy lots of the books”.

The book, published by Gill, says: “Marian Finucane was a trailblazing broadcaster, the first to champion women’s issues on air, and respected for her fairness, empathy and doggedness. One of a small group of Irish people known simply by their first name, the nation mourned when she died suddenly, aged 69, in January 2020.″

Finucane & Me: My Life with Marian, by Clarke and Kathy Sheridan, has been shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards 2023.