PODCAST - Human Nature with Rodney Edwards: Claire Byrne

This week: Claire Byrne, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a wife and one of Ireland’s best-known journalists.

RE: Claire Byrne, thank you so much for taking the time to do this.

CB: Not at all, delighted to. Not at all, you’re more than welcome. I’m delighted to do it, because I’ve been following your work, obviously the historical child abuse stuff, and then I thought the Covid pieces that you did were excellent. We were actually trying to chase some of the people that you had come up with, the funeral [Mrs. Anne Best] was it?

RE: Yeah, I remember watching you talking about it that night. For everybody North and South it was such a heavy time wasn’t it, such a worrying time and a very intense time as well.

CB: I think that first moment though, that funeral was the first thing that really brought it home to people. It was stark, really stark.

RE: It must be a journalist thing is it… I was reading some really lovely stories about you, about when you were getting really inspired to get into journalism and you were really young and you’re reading newspapers like I was. You were pretending that you’re on the news, like I used to do. Is it something that a would-be journalist always does, do you think?

CB: Yeah, I think, well for me it was anyway and I always say I had no background in this, it wasn’t something that was handed down to me, I’m not from a family of writers or journalists or broadcasters, far from it. But I always wanted to do it, it was just a thing that was there from the get-go and you know, when I was growing up people would say “what you want to be?”, “oh, I want to be a reporter or a journalist”. I’m not even sure I knew what it was at times, but there was nothing else in my head, apart from maybe wanting to be Enid Blyton, you know to write books the way she did, but that never happened, so the journalism thing did. But yeah, I just couldn’t see any other job that I wanted to do, and I tried other stuff you know, through college and even after college, just nothing worked for me apart from this job. And this is not like a job, this is great fun and I’ve a great passion for it, so it doesn’t feel like work.

RE: I don’t know if you agree or not, but it is a real honour to be able to meet people and to be given that access to people. This podcast is called Human Nature, but you really do learn a lot about humanity don’t you, when you meet the kind of people that we get to meet.

CB: Yeah, I mean there’s a weight of responsibility with it as well. There’s a real privilege and honour in that, but there’s a huge weight of responsibility that I don’t think you ever really get used to, and nor should you actually. You should always be in awe of that and have great respect for that privilege and honour that people, you know, trust you that much.

RE: Well you of course, tested positive for Covid-19 earlier this year, how are you know, and are you still suffering? 

CB: No, I’m fine. It’s three months since I had it, which I find it hard to believe, actually I find it hard to believe that I had it in the first place, because the first 10 days I had symptoms, and at that stage if you have a cough, you weren’t allowed to be in work. So, all I wanted was for somebody to tell me that I did not have Covid-19 so I could get back into work. So, then I get the call to say, “oh your test was positive” and I was in complete shock, but actually in retrospect I was quite sick, and then the symptoms kind of wouldn’t go away. So, you have this awful fatigue and you have sort of weak respiratory issues going on, and like I still have these mad sneezes, back-to-back 10 sneezes in the morning or in the afternoon and the evening, and I’m telling myself oh you’ve just developed hay fever, but I think that maybe isn’t true. 
I’m not entirely sure, but definitely there are residual things happening, like you know, taking Sudafed in the morning, that’s not normal, but I’m doing that sometimes. And my husband Gerry tested negative, but he had symptoms around that time when the testing system got log-jammed, so he was taken off the list and put back on the list, so he had to wait quite a while for a test. 
So, we’re assuming he was positive even though his test was negative, and he’s had quite a few issues as well. Probably more so than I’ve had, with chest pain and burning lungs and all of that, like he hasn’t gone back running for example. So, and you know what, it’s worrying because nobody knows what the long-tail impact is of Covid-19 because it’s so new.

RE: And that’s the concern, isn’t it.

CB: So, you’re still left wondering what did that thing do to my lungs, or what happens if I get a flu next Winter and you know, but anyway, you could live your life worrying about yourself. I don’t generally, but you do sort of think about it occasionally and wonder why, why did I get it first of all and what was wrong with my immune system, and second of all will there be any long-term issues, but hopefully there won’t be. But look, I’m touching wood, I’m grand, like in the main I’m fine.
RE: And you realised during that time that maybe you were rushing around too much, that life was too fast, is that right? 

CB: No. I don’t know, like I still can’t figure out why I got it. The only thing I would say, and the only thing that comes to mind is that every Monday night we’ve an audience of 100 people who I didn’t know, you know in the studio, and then afterwards we’d probably have photographs together and you know. So, you just don’t know, it could have come from that. Maybe my immune system is low, like since then I’ve been trying to do a bit more exercise and take a bit better care of myself. So, maybe it was a bit of, like who knows. I don’t know, but I’m still a bit shocked that I got it, you know. 
I take my mind back to that moment where I got the phone call to say I had the positive test, you could have knocked me over, I just was really surprised about it, but it is what it is and it happened, and actually it was good to be able to say… because there was a funny old stigma about it, so it was good to be able to sit there on the telly and go “I’m in the Covid gang” you know.

RE: I know, because I remember you’re doing such powerful pieces about Covid cases right around Ireland, and then suddenly it emerged that you actually had it yourself. 

CB: Yes. Yeah.

RE: So, did you worry about your mortality during that period, did you ever think of that?

CB: Not really. There were three nights where I thought if this gets any worse, I’m going to have to maybe make a phone call here. You know, the breathing was starting to get really shallow late at night, but it never occurred to me on you know, I’m in very serious trouble here. What worried me more than anything was I had had my first symptom on a Monday, and on the previous Thursday I had been to see my parents. So, I was hugely concerned that I had infected them, that was my biggest fear. 
I was terrified about that, I felt huge guilt about that, and it was the first thing that came to mind you know, have I put them at risk. That was the big worry, nothing else really. My children were fine, Gerry wasn’t well, but we knew we weren’t sick enough to warrant a big you know, concern or to start worrying about it, but the fear around my parents was real and terrifying for me.

RE: You were given the last rites as a child, how tough was that for your parents?

CB: Terrible. Like I just can’t imagine it to be honest with you, but I just don’t know. I mean between that now and the Covid, like when’s it going to end? So, I got meningitis when I was 14, back in 1990. There was an outbreak of meningitis in Ireland at the time, so on the night that I went into hospital they obviously spent the whole night with me with doctors trying to save my life. And then they were driving back to where they lived and they stopped, and as they would always do every morning, they bought the Irish Independent, and the headline was one word “meningitis” across the top, you know, and then a big explanation about the killer disease that was in the country. So, they did not need to see that. So, then I recovered for one day, went downhill the next day and the priest was called, and my memory of that is oils being put on my forehead, my father and my mother kneeling beside the bed being asked to say a prayer that the priest was saying. And there was a real sense of you know, we’re all saying goodbye now. So, yeah, bizarre, and then I was transferred to a hospital in Dublin and I was there for a couple of weeks, and then I recovered, and I was fine. And I was extremely lucky, because most people have hearing loss, brain damage, limb loss from septicaemia. I didn’t have any of those things, and I probably should have had. So, I was very lucky in the treatment that I got, and very lucky with the recovery that I made.

RE: And then all these years later you get another killer disease in Covid-19. What do you think, which one was worse?

CB: Oh, the meningitis by far. I mean, I probably knew more about what I was getting now when I got the Covid-19, but funny enough I was talking to Professor Sam McConkey about it, about the fact that I had bacterial meningitis and he went “oh that’s why you’ve been able to deal with coronavirus then, every system in your body, including psychologically you would have a memory of dealing with that. You’ll be fine, I’ve no worries about you”.

RE: But there is a difficulty isn’t there when you’re a journalist where you want to come across human, you want to humanise the subject I suppose that you’re on, and particularly if it’s a difficult one to deal with, while also trying to balance that level of professionalism. But do you think it’s important to show your human side when you’re covering stories like the ones you cover? 

CB: Yeah, I do, and I don’t think I hide my human side, maybe when I was working more exclusively in news. Like the television I’m doing now, the television show has a bit more human interest to it arguably than straight news reporting. So, I think you have to be empathetic, you know, and I can’t help but not be really.  You know, I just said there that I try not to get too involved in the story, but you can’t help it, just sometimes you can’t help it, and you’d be weird if you weren’t involved to a certain point where you couldn’t feel something of what those people are going through. I think, you know, there’d be something wrong with you if you didn’t.

RE: When was the last time you broke down in tears?

CB: Probably the night I found out I had coronavirus, and it wasn’t about me, maybe it was a bit of shock in relation to myself, but I think I kind of knew I was okay. It was more my parents, I was terrified, absolutely terrified, I thought I had killed both my parents in truth, because they’re no longer young, particularly my dad would be considered to be in the vulnerable category, and that was my big concern. So, yeah, probably then, probably that night.

RE: And what about weaknesses, do you have any?

CB: I get very wound up, you know people say to me, “oh you’re so calm on the TV and you’re so together”, and I’m thinking if only you knew. Like I find it so hard to keep my stuff together in the house, you know with children and the washing and the food and somebody’s not doing what I want them to do, and I’m like “aargh”. So, I get very anxious and wound up about getting everything done at home, and that is a weakness. I would love to just not give a damn, and not care that the washing wasn’t done, and that the food wasn’t cooked and all of that. I would love that, but I’m not that person. So, I put myself under a lot of pressure and then I wind myself up into an eejit and stress everybody out around me, that’s my biggest weakness.

RE: Was it difficult living in the South and seeing what was going on in the North during the troubles?

CB: I have to admit, we felt so far removed from what was happening in Northern Ireland. We lived in Laois we knew nothing about it apart from what we saw in the news. It was as alien to us as Israel almost, you know. Like I spent some of my summers in Leitrim with my cousins, and they had stories about The Border Fox being on the run through their village and all of this, and I’m sitting there with my mouth open. And I remember going up one summer and saying “oh, can we go to Enniskillen?”, they went “no, no, no, it’s being rebuilt”, this was after the Enniskillen bomb. So, an awareness through news stories, but almost like any other news that we were consuming at the time, it just didn’t affect our lives, and I think that’s the problem for a lot of people in the Republic. Not everybody, because I know that some people will get very cross if I say that, but for me growing up, it was very far removed from my existence, my day-to-day existence.

RE: You quit social media a few years ago, why was that?

CB: Well, I didn’t quit it, I stepped back a bit. I was very, when I was working for Newstalk I was a really early adapter on Twitter, and I was on all the time and I was chatting away, and then I just found it got a bit nasty and it got a bit personal, and apart from the personal stuff which you can kind of deal with, there was stuff about work that was starting to bother me, where I was doing my radio show on a Saturday at the time and people would include my handle in their comments about the show. And then one person might say that I was completely incompetent, incapable and brutal and I shouldn’t have been on the radio, and that was the comment that I’d bring home with me. 
And I would bring it home, and actually my husband Gerry said to me “why are you bringing these people into the house, you’re bringing them into the house with you when you read that stuff” and it was a real wake-up moment where I said, do you know what, if I do a bad job there’s an editor in RTE or a producer whose job it is to tell me that I messed up, so why don’t I just rely on them rather than relying on people who may or may not have an agenda. 
Now I’m not discounting everybody on Twitter, I think some people have really valid opinions, and I still read some of that stuff, but I just think you have to be careful, because you know, weighing yourself down with negative comments every day and you’re going to get them in this job, you’re in the public eye you are going to get that stuff, and you can’t please everybody and not everybody’s going to like you and some people are going to hate you, but do you have to listen to it and do you have to bring it home with you. And I just formed an opinion that you don’t, and you shouldn’t really.

RE: A lot of chat at the moment about sexism in television and entertainment, have you any experience of sexism in Irish broadcasting? Is it a problem in Irish TV?

CB: I don’t think so anymore. I think that media is probably one of the areas that changed quite quickly, and certainly with RTE there’s always been a consciousness and an awareness about it, and I think if you look at RTE we had female presenters who were there, you know from the start of their careers to the very end of their careers to retirement and you know, there was no such thing as kicking people off and all that sort of stuff, in the main. I do think and I’m going back to Hillary Clinton again, you know, she talks about in 1968 being in College in Yale, and there were no female Professors, there were no female Doctors, there were 27 women in the whole of Yale, and the men were saying to them “if you get into this College, if you pass this exam, you’re going to take my place and what good is it to you?”. So, when you look at feminism and the fight, they are the women who fought the fight, like I’m reaping the rewards of that and the benefits of that, but my fight is nowhere near what those women went through. My fight, and I think the fight for most women, certainly in Ireland, is about childcare and it’s about supports if you are trying to bring up a family, there’s basically nothing there for you, you just have to manage it on your own, you have to hope that your income is good enough to be able to afford childcare, otherwise you’re in real trouble. And a lot of my friends who have children around here where I live, it’s the women who work part-time or it’s the women who give up work, because we are the primary caregiver still and the supports are not there. So, that’s I think where the battleground is in my circle if you like.

RE: And you’ve spoken out before as well about the Me Too movement, you know you’ve made some comments in the past about that. Do you have any personal experience of that?

CB: Bits and bobs along the way, but you know, I’ve always operated like a person in the world, and I’ve always been quite good at you know, I haven’t operated as oh here I’m a woman working in it, I’ve just operated as a person. So, you accept that I’m able to do the job or not able to do the job, and I believe that I can do the job, so let’s all move on from that. I have had comments, I have had things said to me by ignorant people, but I’m quite good at dealing with them. You know, I can’t remember a moment where I’ve kicked myself because I haven’t pushed back, I’m quite good at pushing back.

RE: What kind of comments were made?

CB: You know, I mean I can’t even remember off the top of my head, but you know, particularly when you’re younger, when you’re a young woman working in media, you have things said to you by older men about how you look or whatever it might be. 

RE: Are these work colleagues or members of the public?

CB: No, more members of the public I think. Like I think, now maybe I’m wrong, but I think I’m a bit scary [laughter] and I think as I’ve become older that people don’t take the risk of saying those things to me, because I am ready to fight back. I am ready to fight back, I really am.

RE: And is that the type of thing you’re going to teach your children, you know to stand up for yourself…

CB: Oh, all of the time. All of the time you know, girls can do anything, girls can do any job, your body is your business, all of those things, and they’re so small, like I sometimes feel mad saying it to them, but I just hammer it home to them. And actually, that’s the way I was brought up as well. Like there were five girls in my house and one boy, and the girls could do exactly what he could do and more, you know. So, that’s bred into me as well, and that’s what I will instil in my children, and in particular my son. So, the girls will know that they can do anything, but I want him to know that he can’t do everything, you know, and that he has to have respect for people. 

RE: Back to your children and final question. When you tuck your children in at night, what do you think when you look at them?

CB: I hope I did a good job today [laughter]. I hope I did a good job today, because you know, I don’t know like, you do your best, but you just wonder sometimes what is the legacy that I’m leaving with them. You know, what are they going to grow up with that will come from me and how I dealt with them. So, I hope when I tuck them in at night that they’re happy, that I have been the best parent that I can be, and that if I haven’t, I’ll be better tomorrow.

RE: Claire Byrne, thank you so much. 

CB: It was a great pleasure. It was a great pleasure [laughter].

RE: And you’d nothing to worry about, what were you worried about? 

CB: I don’t know, I just like, I feel like it’s all verbal diarrhoea.

Human Nature is a podcast written and presented by The Impartial Reporter’s Rodney Edwards and is available to listen to in full on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, SoundCloud and www.impartialreporter.com.