On childhood MINE was not a particularly happy childhood. For over 30 years my parents had lived, for the most part, a "silent" marriage.
Invariably, when my father had a few drinks too many, a bad row would develop . . . He was a fairly heavy drinker - not a drunk, but fond of a drink. When these rows occurred, I would wrap myself in a blanket and sit on the stairs listening. If it threatened to become violent, I would rush into the kitchen shouting and screaming at my father, trying to break it up. I would be ushered up to bed by my mother, who would then, of course, return to the fray using my intervention as ammunition.
I remember those nights with great pain and anger. I knew my parents had dreadful problems in their marriage, but I didn't know whether this was the norm. I couldn't, or wouldn't, speak to my friends about it. I never spoke to anyone about these problems, except my own brothers and sisters. It was very hard on them. Declan was a lovely, affable child who hero worshipped me. I truly don't know what I was like in those days, but I believe that I was often sharp, argumentative, hostile.
While my mother called my father a "street angel and a house devil", I would pretend to my friends that everything was just fine at home. All my friends thought my mother was great, but were wary of my father's moodiness, which seldom abated. One evening, after a number of my pals had been in the house, I challenged him and told him that if he ever again treated any of my friends as badly as he had that evening, I would leave the house. He didn't take me at all seriously and subsequently told my mother that my face, when I was giving out to him, was all scrunched up "like a sixpence".
There was, however, one particularly dreadful night. After a terrible row, which I had helped break up, my mother went sobbing to bed. My father was sitting on his own in the kitchen when I came back down. I closed the door behind me, picked up the bread knife and told him I would prefer he was dead. He said nothing, he just looked at me.
He said, "What are you going to do with that knife?" "I don't know." There was a pause. Suddenly I drew the knife back and threw it as hard as I could at him. He flung himself to one side and the knife stuck fast in the back door, where it quivered in the silence. We were both shocked. I didn't say a word, I just turned away and went to bed. After an hour or so, when I didn't hear him going upstairs, I went down to the kitchen. He was sitting in his chair, silently crying.
He didn't say anything and I couldn't think of anything to say to him, so, once again, I turned and went to bed. I was no more than 14, maybe 15, at the time. Many times since have I thought of that night, often in the context of my own beloved son, Mark, who, as I write, is 18 years of age. I think with horror of how I would have felt had Mark, at the age of 14, tried to knife me. Neither my father nor anybody else ever spoke to me about that incident afterwards.
I truly hated my father through those years, with the hatred of the young, the spirited, the immature. He never, to my knowledge, tried to make me feel otherwise and it was only many years later, when I began to have some degree of success on TV and radio, that we managed to cobble together some kind of superficial relationship.
How much of this unhappiness was my father's fault and how much my mother's, I will never know. My mother certainly created mischief in the house. She constantly complained about her poor health - she was frequently ill with migraines or "nerves" - and always, in some manner or form, its cause found its way back to my father. Night after night she would talk to her children, singly or in groups, about the sadness of her marriage, her poor health, and about the things that we must watch out for in the future when we chose a partner. John recalls Ma keeping him up all night, "giving out" about Da, and then his cycling to school the next day having had no sleep.
I don't want to be too hard on my mother, because in many ways she was a quite exceptional woman. She was small, feisty and strong willed. She was ahead of her time in her liberal views; deeply religious, yes, but also willing to help out those who had in some way transgressed against society.
And we did love her, and we did cherish her, and we did try to protect her. And in so doing we further alienated our father.
Why didn't he make some effort to redress the balance, why didn't he fight his paternal corner, why didn't he tell us he wanted some of our time, of our affection even? Perhaps he felt that, if he asked for some affection from us, it would mean he would have to give some back, and he couldn't, or wouldn't, do that.
Why didn't he point out some of my mother's peccadilloes, try to justify his behaviour, try to give himself more stature in our eyes? It saddens me that I'll never know the answers to these questions.
But I do believe that they were two good, vulnerable, highly individualistic, utterly incompatible people who almost destroyed each other's, and their children's, lives.
On marriage I FIRST met Ann Walsh in 1988. I had been presenting The Arts Show for a matter of months when Ann, who was a trainee producer, joined the team for a short period on a placement.
Over the next few years, we met casually in RTE, exchanged a few words, and went our separate ways ... Then, a few years ago, we met by accident in Belfast where I was working on a possible cable TV deal. We went out to dinner together and commenced a clandestine relationship.
Why did I do it? I had a good marriage with Eileen and a happy home life. I knew that someone with as public a profile as myself ran a grave risk of being found out and I knew the consequences would be unthinkable; Eileen would be so hurt she would be unable to forgive me.
One of my reasons for writing this memoir is to explore the possible causes of the breakdown of my marriage. As I write, I can see that all along there were tell tale signs. My life was led "on the hoof", so to speak. Eileen's mother had told her that I was a "runner", as she called it, and that I would never stay with her. My mother, I found out years later, had also forecast that the marriage would not last.
Certainly, if blame is to be apportioned, then I willingly shoulder most of it. I was a workaholic, obsessed with living my life to the full and in need of constant stimulation.
Eileen was always far calmer than me, more contained, more contented. She was happy to live a glamorous life through me, and she also had four lovely children of whom she thought the world. Eileen's mother had died while I was in Australia, and so now both her parents were dead. She had no brothers or sisters and she was not close to any of her relations. With the death of Gran, and as the children began to move away from home, Eileen became more reliant on me for company.
However, over the years our interests had diverged and, although we still got on extremely well together, I know that I had become quite selfish with my time. I needed time to read, to visit galleries, to watch movies, and I didn't always feel a need for Eileen to accompany me. I frequently became irritated, accusing her of trying to turn my work into a social occasion, and this became a bone of contention between us. I have no excuse, however, for starting my relationship with Ann. It happened. And it continued, sporadically, over a few years. At no stage did I tell Ann that I was unhappy in my marriage and neither did she ask me to leave, even though her relationship at that time was failing.
In late 1994, I went with Ann for a weekend in Paris, and shortly after Eileen found out. There was an appalling scene. Eileen was unspeakably shocked and wounded, and she ordered me out of the house. I moved into the Conrad Hotel, where my friend Michael Governey was extremely kind to me, although he had no real idea of what was going on. I told Ann I needed, time to think. I hardly left my room for three days. Eileen contacted me to say she would take me back if I wanted to come back. I returned to the house and, in an emotional meeting with Eileen and my children, told them that I wanted to come home.
By now, Ann's relationship had broken up and she had bought her own house in Ballinteer and was working as a producer on The Arts Show. We tried to keep everything on a professional footing, avoiding each other as far as possible both inside and outside of the office. It was difficult. In the summer, I went to the United States for a month on my own to mull things over; I was feeling very depressed. When I returned, Eileen was waiting for me at Shannon Airport and we went on to spend a week in a holiday cottage near Ballyvaughan in Co Clare.
The interlude wasn't a success in terms of reviving our marriage.
To Weekend 2