Brian Farrell’s commanding presence shaped political debate

Brian Farrell made an enormous contribution to Irish political life through his work as a broadcaster and an academic.

Nobody else before or since has combined the roles to such effect. His commanding presence on air for four decades helped to shape the nature of political debate in the country.

His ability to combine rigorous questioning with a fundamental courtesy was the hallmark of an interviewing technique that gave him a unique authority in his dealings with powerful political figures.

Mr Farrell's engagement with the media world began very early in his career. He started to broadcast on RTÉ Radio in the late 1950s and also contributed leaders to the Irish Press newspaper at that time.

It was the advent of television that turned him into a national figure. He presented a series of flagship current affairs programmes on RTÉ - the most notable being 7 Days, Today Tonight and Prime Time.

In the late 1990s and early years of this century, he hosted the weekly Farrell discussion programme on RTÉ.

He was also the anchor presenter for the coverage of 10 general election counts from the 1960s to the 1990s.

In 1982 he presided over the first ever televised leaders' debate in a general election, between the then heads of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, Charles Haughey and Garret Fitzgerald respectively.

Mr Farrell was a great believer in the importance of the lengthy televised election count as a key factor in the functioning of Irish democracy.

During the debate about the introduction of electronic voting he expressed the view that the engagement of the public with the long manual count on television contributed hugely to the legitimisation of the eventual outcome.

As well as presiding over the cut and thrust of politics, Mr Farrell was the mainstay of RTÉ coverage of important public events such as state funerals and the visits of foreign dignitaries.

He started covering such major events with the visit of US president John F Kennedy to Ireland in 1963. He later interviewed several US presidents, including Ronald Reagan.

What made Mr Farrell unique was that as well as being a leading broadcaster, he was also a serious academic who made an enormous contribution to the development of politics as a university subject.

He will be remembered by generations of students at UCD as an inspirational lecturer who took his teaching duties very seriously.

He wrote a number of important books on Irish politics, including the seminal Chairman Or Chief? The Role of Taoiseach in Irish Government, and an early biography of Sean Lemass - a politician he greatly admired.

Along with Maurice Manning and Tom Garvin, he helped to make the study of politics at UCD a truly enjoyable as well an educational experience for many students.

It is no accident that two of his sons, David and Theo, followed him into academic life, with David currently professor of politics at UCD and Theo professor of war studies at King’s College, London.

It is to UCD’s shame that Brian Farrell was never appointed full Professor of Politics at the university, possibly due to academic disapproval of his success as a television presenter.

He will be remembered by all who knew him for his erudition, wit, courtesy and humour.