The RTE Radio One Today with Pat Kenny show received hundreds of calls from listeners looking for the fax number of the governor of Missouri after it broadcast an interview with Death Row prisoner Alan Bannister on Tuesday.
In an extensive interview at the start of Tuesday's programme, Bannister spoke of the history of his case and his hopes for clemency.
Mr Michael O'Kennedy TD, who contacted the office of Governor Mel Carnahan after the broadcast with the help of the American embassy, said the interview was "the most harrowing" he had ever heard. He had a "very frank discussion with Governor Carnahan's political consular" and he had no doubt the governor was aware of the correspondence from Ireland.
He hoped the interviews would "galvanise people to do what they can to end this barbarous practice".
After Bannister was interviewed on Tuesday, he told a researcher working for Today with Pat Kenny she could ring his "holding cell" at 10 p.m. Irish time (4 a.m. Missouri time) that night. If he was still there at that time, it would mean he had no further hope of being granted a review.
Ordinary Death Row prisoners have restricted access to phones, so if Bannister was to get a last-minute reprieve, he would no longer have special "holding cell" privileges at that time.
When the researcher, Ms Kim Ni Ruairc, and the presenter of the programme, Mr Pat Kenny, returned to the studio that night they discovered Bannister was still in his holding cell and that there was definitely no further hope of a review. The interview they recorded with him just five hours before his death was broadcast yesterday morning, after Bannister had died.
Mr Kenny said he found conducting the interview "extremely difficult". Bannister seemed calm "but in semi-shock". He himself had found it impossible to sleep last night and his wife, who was in studio at the time of the interview, was in tears.
He said the experience had reminded him of night-long vigils with his dying father and aunt. "At least in that situation, even if you're told the person mightn't last the night, there's some hope of them living longer. When I did the interview with Alan last night, it was an absolute certainty that he would be dead before we broadcast it."
