Ireland mourned the shock loss on Friday of one of the nation’s best-known broadcasters, Gerry Ryan, who was found dead in his Dublin apartment after failing to broadcast his morning radio show, an Irish institution.
He was 53. The cause of death was not disclosed. Ryan had been living alone since he separated in 2008 from his wife, Morah, with whom he had five children, aged 10 to 24.
Since 1988 Ryan, a Dublin pioneer of pirate radio who had an early reputation as a “shock jock,” has hosted a three-hour morning radio show on national broadcasters RTE called simply The Gerry Ryan Show. It features live phone-ins, interviews and political satire.
He also fronted myriad RTE television talk shows and celebrity interviews — his Irish name recognition underscored by program titles such as Ryantown, Gerry Ryan Tonight, Gerry Ryan’s Hitlist and Ryan Confidential — and was known for his outspokenness and coarse humor.
After police discovered Ryan’s body on Friday, his radio station RTE2 broke off its usual programming to play nonstop music for more than an hour as grief-stricken station employees absorbed the news.
Tributes poured in from all corners of Ireland’s political and entertainment communities, led by Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen, who lauded Ryan as “one of the greats of modern Irish broadcasting.” “As a broadcaster, Gerry Ryan was both informed and intelligent, forthright and articulate,” Cowen said. “As a man, he was generous, famously irreverent and witty.”
The managing director of RTE Radio, Claire Duignan, said Ryan had gone home from work on Thursday night complaining of feeling ill and not intending to come to work on Friday.
“When he spoke with people to say he wouldn’t be in today, they obviously expressed concern and asked: Did he need a doctor or anything like that?” Duignan said. “But he said no, he was fine, but he wouldn’t be in today.”
Funeral arrangements were not immediately announced.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS