Joe Duffy praises Liveline callers as he prepares for his final show
The Ballyfermot broadcaster, 69, is retiring after 37 years at the station, where he has presented Liveline for 27 years.
'It will go on. Liveline is on today, but it's on on Monday as well,' Duffy told RTE Radio ahead of his last programme at 1.45pm.
He added: 'It's the voices on Liveline; the less I talk the better, I find.
Joe Duffy has worked at RTE for 37 years (PA)
'We (the media) are still trusted. In the main we are still trusted, unlike other countries.
'They're all part of our daily discourse, which is great and I hope that continues.'
Duffy joined RTE as a radio producer in 1989 and came to prominence as a reporter on the Gay Byrne Show.
He presented programmes such as Soundbyte before taking over Liveline from Marian Finucane in 1998, attracting some 400,000 listeners to the phone-in programme.
He said hearing his Dublin working-class accent on the national broadcaster had prompted some 'green-ink letters' of complaint, some of which were internal.
Among Liveline's most famous episodes were callers with thoughts on the television series Normal People, people sharing stories of corporal punishment in Ireland over the decades, and women talking about menopause.
Duffy said the only time he has been physically threatened during his tenure was over discussions about the closure of 'headshops', which sold drugs paraphernalia, where he said a man confronted him in a car park.
Asked about whether he would run for the presidency in the autumn, Duffy said: 'I will not lose the run of myself.'
'I can see the Aras from Claddagh Green, I'd say that's the closest I'll ever get to it.'
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If you travelled to the London borough of Islington between January and February of 2023, there was a decent chance you would see a large, shivering crowd of women standing at night outside the stage door of the Almeida Theatre. They were there to see Paul Mescal, the Normal People and Gladiator II actor, who was starring as Stanley Kowalski in the theatre's production of A Streetcar Named Desire. But if those girls on the pavement came for Mescal, they stayed for – and they remembered – Patsy Ferran, the 35-year-old Spanish-British actress who played the show's heroine, Blanche DuBois. 'Mescal is tremendous,' said the review in The Times, but 'he'll surely admit that it's Ferran's night'. The Daily Mail agreed: 'Much the best reason for seeing this sold-out show – or at least praying that it transfers to the West End – is not so much Mescal, as the sensational acting of Patsy Ferran as Blanche.' 'I don't actually read reviews,' says Ferran, sitting in a large garden after finishing the YOU photoshoot. Well, I say, everyone thought you were great. She laughs. 'Phew!' Ferran is, in the theatre world, one of Britain's most-loved and hardest-working actresses. She made her debut aged 25 in 2014's Blithe Spirit, which starred Angela Lansbury, and, a few months later, had a lead role at the National Theatre. Afterwards, a critic in The Observer said she was 'one of the best young actors I have seen in the past decade'. By 2017, she'd done her first film – God's Own Country, alongside a pre-Prince Charles Josh O'Connor; by 2019, she'd won a best actress Olivier Award; and by January 2020, Vogue had picked her as one of 25 'bright young things' from around the world who would, they predicted, 'define the decade ahead'. The Telegraph once compared Ferran to Maggie Smith. The theatre critic Nick Curtis disagrees: 'I'm inclined to say she's actually more like Judi Dench. 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It was another tiny role, but again she impressed. The Guardian called her 'scene-stealing', The Telegraph instructed people to 'look out for [her] little gem of a performance', and The Times declared that 'the small role of Edith the maid is wrought up to maximum comic pitch by Patsy Ferran… it is her professional stage debut, and a hoot'. Curtis remembers seeing the production. 'Angela Lansbury was great but she [Ferran] absolutely stole the show from her – and from everybody else.' Afterwards, 'People were going: 'Who is this woman?!'' (Ferran concedes that she does give good maid. 'Every time I put on a maid's costume, if I'm doing a period piece or something, the costume designer always says: 'God, this really suits you.' And I'm like: 'I know, I know. I was born to play a maid.'') By 2019 she'd been nominated for best actress at the Olivier Awards for a Tennessee Williams play called Summer and Smoke. 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'I knew of him, obviously, but I somehow was living under a rock the whole time Normal People came out, so I hadn't seen it.' I ask if she's watched it now and she says, in a sheepish way, no. 'But I will!' She did, however, watch Aftersun – the film for which Mescal was nominated for an Oscar – at some point during the play's run. The next day, 'I told him how much I enjoyed it. And he went: 'Thanks very much.' Then, cut to doing the play in the evening, I looked at him from across the stage, and I just thought: 'Oh my god!' I got really fan-girly and flustered.' Still, Ferran was shocked to see all 'those people waiting outside of the theatre for [Mescal]. That's when it really dawned on me how well-known he is.' The pair are now friends. 'He's one of my favourite actors I've ever worked with, because he really cares about the job. And he's also stupidly talented.' (That sentiment is shared: Mescal has described Ferran as an 'acting wizard'.) The play had a lot of fake rain, which was tricky. One night, the stage had been hot-mopped beforehand, accidentally removing its grit. It became an ice rink. There was a moment where Mescal was supposed to run across the stage, and instead 'he got on to his knees and did a knee slide from one end to the other'. Like a football celebration? 'Yes, or a rock'n'roll moment. I thought it looked quite good. He was embarrassed people might think it was…' she puts on a very thespy voice, 'a choice.' The day before I met Ferran, I saw a video of the singer Lorde leaving the Broadway version of Streetcar. She was unaware and is delighted – 'Lorde came to see the show?! Shut up' – then promptly trumps me by saying that Angelina Jolie watched it in London. They didn't meet but she saw her from afar, in the theatre's café. 'She just walked into my reality for a second.' At home, she made her husband guess who she'd spotted. 'I was like: 'Think of the most famous person on earth.'' Ferran has had to get used to starry company. In the last year, she's had a part in Mickey 17, alongside Robert Pattinson and Mark Ruffalo; a lead role in Black Mirror, with Paul Giamatti; and this week she's co-starring in new film Hot Milk with Fiona Shaw and Emma Mackey. Shaw was 'amazing'. They shot the film while Ferran was rehearsing to play Eliza Doolittle at London's Old Vic theatre. 'I think she [Shaw] had decided that she wasn't going to do theatre any more. But there were moments within the conversation where she would just start reciting Shakespeare. Her memory is incredible.' This February Ferran played Jane Austen in the BBC show Miss Austen. It was ostensibly about an older Cassandra Austen (Jane's sister, played by Keeley Hawes) burning Jane's letters, but, as the review in The Daily Mail had it: 'The real stars, though, are Patsy Ferran as Jane herself, aged about 20, and Synnove Karlsen as the young Cassandra.' Lots of young British actors moan about being pigeonholed by period dramas; not Ferran. 'I hadn't really scratched that itch. I loved the idea of playing someone who could be the smartest person in the room.' Also, the costumes were comfy. 'It was the best. Because of the structure of those dresses, you could eat what you wanted.' In December, Ferran will be in Jay Kelly, a film about two middle-aged friends on a weekend reunion that was co-written by Emily Mortimer and has a stupidly starry cast: George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Jim Broadbent, Riley Keough. Ferran is tight-lipped, but says they filmed for three weeks in the UK and three weeks in Italy. 'It was just a crazy experience. It was sort of like seeing Angelina Jolie, where you've been watching these people your whole life and when they walk into your own reality, it's like a glitch happens. You go: 'I'm sorry,'' she gestures to an imaginary George Clooney, ''you're not supposed to be real.'' Well, if I were George Clooney, I would be nervous for the reviews to come out: Ferran will, almost certainly, steal the show. THE FERRAN FACTOR Idea of holiday hell Safari. Last piece of clothing you bought A pair of shoes from Sandro. Spotify song of last year Denial Is A River by Doechii. Cat or a dog person? Dog. The word you most overuse Outrageous. Last thing you can remember losing One hoop earring. Superstition you can't shake I can't walk over three consecutive drains. Book you often gift to people Less by Andrew Sean Greer. Favourite possession Coffee mug with Charles M Schulz's cartoons on it. Average screen time Around 2 hours 45 minutes. Website you spend too much time on YouTube. First thing you do in the morning Coffeeeee! Wordle starting word Tears. Picture director: Ester Malloy. Stylist: Anna Hughes-Chamberlain. Hair: Sven Bayerbach at Carol Hayes using Hair by Sam McKnight. Make-up: Caz Wren using Tatcha skincare and Ilia Beauty.
