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Gerry Hannan
Gerard (Gerry) Hannan
Website: Personal
Date Election Party Status Constituency Seat Count Votes Share Quota
1999 Local Non party/Independent lozenge Not Elected Limerick No 2 (3) 65 1.58% 0.08
2004 European Non party/Independent lozenge Not Elected South (4) 6,394 1.32% 0.05
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Jan O Sullivan "backs Gerry Hannan's claim that Frank McCourt and Jim Kemmy were close friends"
O’Sullivan pays tribute to Frank McCourt
Issued : Monday 20 July, 2009
Jan O'Sullivan TD Statement by Jan O'Sullivan TD
Spokesperson on Health
I would like to extend by sympathies to Frank McCourt’s widow Ellen, to his family and to his friends on the occasion of his death yesterday.
Frank did no small service to Limerick and his portrayal of the city in Angela’s Ashes shone a light on the grinding poverty and hardship that existed during his childhood.
Despite the experiences of his upbringing, Frank always retained a deep affection for Limerick, and returned to the city on a frequent basis.
Jim Kemmy TD, my Labour Party predecessor in Limerick, was a close friend of Frank’s, and actually launched Angela’s Ashes in Limerick. I had the privilege myself of meeting Frank when he was presented with an honorary doctorate by University of Limerick in 1997.
The passing of Frank McCourt is an event of great sadness. Ni bheid a leithead aris ann.
Issued : Monday 20 July, 2009
Jan O'Sullivan TD Statement by Jan O'Sullivan TD
Spokesperson on Health
I would like to extend by sympathies to Frank McCourt’s widow Ellen, to his family and to his friends on the occasion of his death yesterday.
Frank did no small service to Limerick and his portrayal of the city in Angela’s Ashes shone a light on the grinding poverty and hardship that existed during his childhood.
Despite the experiences of his upbringing, Frank always retained a deep affection for Limerick, and returned to the city on a frequent basis.
Jim Kemmy TD, my Labour Party predecessor in Limerick, was a close friend of Frank’s, and actually launched Angela’s Ashes in Limerick. I had the privilege myself of meeting Frank when he was presented with an honorary doctorate by University of Limerick in 1997.
The passing of Frank McCourt is an event of great sadness. Ni bheid a leithead aris ann.
"Hannan supporter or another begrudger"
Sifting Through Frank's Ashes
By James Kirby
The death of Frank McCourt was greeted with mixed feelings in Limerick, the town that he recalled with little sentiment in his best-selling memoirs, writes James Kirby
Frank McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes, the blockbuster memoir of his "miserable Irish childhood" has died, and the people of Limerick bid him farewell with mixed feelings.
Limerick remains a small city — a population of perhaps 100,000 — but in McCourt's childhood it was smaller still, geographically isolated and economically fast asleep.
This was the city of my parents and grandparents. My grandmother's best friend was Mrs Coffey and her husband was the ogre McCourt describes insulting the wives of Limerick in the social welfare office while their husbands were off working in the English munitions factories during the war.
As a teenager, my father collected The Limerick Leader newspaper twice a week for the family shop. On that assignment, he had to deal with "The Abbot", an unforgettable character in McCourt's book, who stood for decades as a newspaper seller on the main street, O'Connell Street.
Reading Angela's Ashes for the first time back in 1996, when it was just "another book about the city" and not a Pulitzer Prize-winning runaway bestseller, I was bowled over by the beauty and restraint of McCourt's retelling of his extremely difficult childhood. The first time I saw someone reading the book on a suburban Melbourne train, I was compelled to ask them what they thought of it. Little did I know that Angela's Ashes would soon become as successful in Australia as it was in the USA where it sold over 10 million copies.
While my Limerick, that of the 1960s and 1970s, lacked the utter squalor and religious dominance of the 1930s, much of the old town remained. McCourt's old school, Leamy's, by then a clothing factory, was not far from mine in the Crescent, and the lanes of Limerick were still intact. By the time Alan Parker and his crew came to film the movie adaptation of the book in 1999, the lanes were gone (they had to film the lane scenes in Cork).
An abiding memory is a lane close to where McCourt spent his first years in the town. I can see it now, permanently wet and with tiny houses all around whose front doors opened directly into the living rooms. How did all those big families fit into those dainty damp cottages? Another nearby lane had a butcher's yard in the middle where the blood would regularly run out under big wooden gates and flow freely into the gutters.
Mostly, however, my bright new Limerick had turned its back on McCourt's world. We had cars, televisions and shiny new houses in estates that fringed the old town. McCourt's Dickensian tramps, crumbling tenements and sickness were fading away — and my parents' generation could not wait for them to disappear altogether.
When I returned to the city after Angela's Ashes was published, McCourt's Limerick seemed to lurk around every corner. The book was the talk of the town. I found locations from the memoir springing up everywhere. Behind my old childhood street was the "City Home" where McCourt nearly died of typhoid (or was it starvation?). Our old cinema — the Lyric — was where the McCourts could spend a few shillings and escape their desolation for a few hours.
Around the city I found the book well known but hardly well loved. Moreover, it attracted deep suspicions. Was McCourt's story even true? Were the people of Limerick ever that cruel? Nobody, it must be said, had any dispute with McCourt's recollections of the weather.
My father would say: "The problem with the McCourts is that their father was an alcoholic, in those days if the father was alcoholic, you were finished."
And my mother would add: "A friend of your father's knew those McCourts well. He says Frank McCourt always seemed to be alright, always had enough money for the scouts and all that."
McCourt himself, as graceful in person as in his own writings, never had any illusions about the town and what it thought of him for making it famous for all the wrong reasons. He loved to tell a story about going back for a book signing in O'Mahony's bookshop on O'Connell Street where there was a big crowd lining up for his autograph. A year or two later he returned again, this time as an international celebrity. On that occasion, the crowd of autograph hunters had shrunk.
"Where is everybody?" asked McCourt.
The bookshop manager replied, "The first time you were here they had heard about it, this time round they'd read it."
In recent years, as McCourt turned out lesser books and his brother Malachy turned out ever weaker volumes of reminiscence, many of the townspeople set out for revenge: After the publication of ’Tis, Frank McCourt's recollections of American adulthood, a Limerick local radio personality, Gerry Hannan, published a riposte titled Tis Me Ass. You don't have to read it to taste the sarcastic venom aimed at the man who talked down the town.
On O'Connell Street, the Coliseum café and the Jesuit church are gone but the local paper, the Limerick Leader, is going strong. And the Limerick Leader still knows its market. A few months before Frank McCourt died, it published yet another feature on the family. This time, someone had dug up a picture of Frank and Malachy as boys all dressed up in their scout uniforms — and not looking hungry at all. As anyone from Limerick could have told you.
By James Kirby
The death of Frank McCourt was greeted with mixed feelings in Limerick, the town that he recalled with little sentiment in his best-selling memoirs, writes James Kirby
Frank McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes, the blockbuster memoir of his "miserable Irish childhood" has died, and the people of Limerick bid him farewell with mixed feelings.
Limerick remains a small city — a population of perhaps 100,000 — but in McCourt's childhood it was smaller still, geographically isolated and economically fast asleep.
This was the city of my parents and grandparents. My grandmother's best friend was Mrs Coffey and her husband was the ogre McCourt describes insulting the wives of Limerick in the social welfare office while their husbands were off working in the English munitions factories during the war.
As a teenager, my father collected The Limerick Leader newspaper twice a week for the family shop. On that assignment, he had to deal with "The Abbot", an unforgettable character in McCourt's book, who stood for decades as a newspaper seller on the main street, O'Connell Street.
Reading Angela's Ashes for the first time back in 1996, when it was just "another book about the city" and not a Pulitzer Prize-winning runaway bestseller, I was bowled over by the beauty and restraint of McCourt's retelling of his extremely difficult childhood. The first time I saw someone reading the book on a suburban Melbourne train, I was compelled to ask them what they thought of it. Little did I know that Angela's Ashes would soon become as successful in Australia as it was in the USA where it sold over 10 million copies.
While my Limerick, that of the 1960s and 1970s, lacked the utter squalor and religious dominance of the 1930s, much of the old town remained. McCourt's old school, Leamy's, by then a clothing factory, was not far from mine in the Crescent, and the lanes of Limerick were still intact. By the time Alan Parker and his crew came to film the movie adaptation of the book in 1999, the lanes were gone (they had to film the lane scenes in Cork).
An abiding memory is a lane close to where McCourt spent his first years in the town. I can see it now, permanently wet and with tiny houses all around whose front doors opened directly into the living rooms. How did all those big families fit into those dainty damp cottages? Another nearby lane had a butcher's yard in the middle where the blood would regularly run out under big wooden gates and flow freely into the gutters.
Mostly, however, my bright new Limerick had turned its back on McCourt's world. We had cars, televisions and shiny new houses in estates that fringed the old town. McCourt's Dickensian tramps, crumbling tenements and sickness were fading away — and my parents' generation could not wait for them to disappear altogether.
When I returned to the city after Angela's Ashes was published, McCourt's Limerick seemed to lurk around every corner. The book was the talk of the town. I found locations from the memoir springing up everywhere. Behind my old childhood street was the "City Home" where McCourt nearly died of typhoid (or was it starvation?). Our old cinema — the Lyric — was where the McCourts could spend a few shillings and escape their desolation for a few hours.
Around the city I found the book well known but hardly well loved. Moreover, it attracted deep suspicions. Was McCourt's story even true? Were the people of Limerick ever that cruel? Nobody, it must be said, had any dispute with McCourt's recollections of the weather.
My father would say: "The problem with the McCourts is that their father was an alcoholic, in those days if the father was alcoholic, you were finished."
And my mother would add: "A friend of your father's knew those McCourts well. He says Frank McCourt always seemed to be alright, always had enough money for the scouts and all that."
McCourt himself, as graceful in person as in his own writings, never had any illusions about the town and what it thought of him for making it famous for all the wrong reasons. He loved to tell a story about going back for a book signing in O'Mahony's bookshop on O'Connell Street where there was a big crowd lining up for his autograph. A year or two later he returned again, this time as an international celebrity. On that occasion, the crowd of autograph hunters had shrunk.
"Where is everybody?" asked McCourt.
The bookshop manager replied, "The first time you were here they had heard about it, this time round they'd read it."
In recent years, as McCourt turned out lesser books and his brother Malachy turned out ever weaker volumes of reminiscence, many of the townspeople set out for revenge: After the publication of ’Tis, Frank McCourt's recollections of American adulthood, a Limerick local radio personality, Gerry Hannan, published a riposte titled Tis Me Ass. You don't have to read it to taste the sarcastic venom aimed at the man who talked down the town.
On O'Connell Street, the Coliseum café and the Jesuit church are gone but the local paper, the Limerick Leader, is going strong. And the Limerick Leader still knows its market. A few months before Frank McCourt died, it published yet another feature on the family. This time, someone had dug up a picture of Frank and Malachy as boys all dressed up in their scout uniforms — and not looking hungry at all. As anyone from Limerick could have told you.
Yet another article relating to Gerry Hannan and Frank McCourt
See you in court, McCourt
Next week's film début of Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt's stirring memoir of his Limerick childhood, is eagerly awaited. But for local radio host Gerry Hannan it is a vicious slur on his city
Tuesday, 4 January 2000
Frank McCourt must have done scores of interviews to plug 'Tis, the sequel to Angela's Ashes, his global bestseller about growing up dirt poor in the priest-ridden, rain-sodden slums of Limerick. But all these encounters put together could not have been anywhere near as painful as the prime-time television appearance he made back in his native Ireland recently.
Frank McCourt must have done scores of interviews to plug 'Tis, the sequel to Angela's Ashes, his global bestseller about growing up dirt poor in the priest-ridden, rain-sodden slums of Limerick. But all these encounters put together could not have been anywhere near as painful as the prime-time television appearance he made back in his native Ireland recently.
It wasn't Pat Kenny, host of The Late Late Show, who gave him a hard time. The trouble came from a member of the Dublin studio audience. "You have been peddling lies about Limerick," the man bellowed into the microphone. "You are a liar, a self-confessed liar." McCourt could only raise his arms to the heavens and appeal to his accuser in his strange but weirdly soothing mid-Atlantic accent: "I don't know why you're so obsessed with me. Why don't you get a life and go and do something?"
His plea fell on deaf ears, for a large part of Gerry Hannan's life is now devoted to stirring up controversy around McCourt. His personal crusade to "set the record straight" will crank up a gear next week when the movie version of Angela's Ashes rolls on to cinema screens. Hannan, who combines local broadcasting with running a second-hand bookshop in Limerick, has even penned two books as direct ripostes to McCourt's memoirs. The first was called simply Ashes. The second, due for release next week, is even more opportunistically entitled 'Tis In Me Ass, an expression straight from the language of the Lanes, the now notorious backstreets on the north side of Limerick where McCourt endured his miserable childhood.
The main outlet for Hannan's literary vendetta isn't his books - which will never rival their targets in the bestseller lists - but the late-night phone-in programme he presents on Limerick 95. The radio station provides a regular platform for critics of McCourt, who seem to be both numerous and vocal in the author's native city.
No one is getting terribly worked up about 'Tis, which tells of young Frank's escape from Limerick to America and what he found there. Hannan's tribute to "the people who didn't run off to America but instead stayed at home to help build a city" doesn't pack anywhere near the same animus as Ashes, which was a far more pointed attack on Angela's Ashes.
According to his arch critic, McCourt's upbringing wasn't anywhere near as brutal as he makes out. "When you read Angela's Ashes, it's misery, misery, misery all the way," says Hannan. "That's not how it is remembered by anyone else who lived there. Of course there was a lot of poverty and suffering, but there was also a great spirit to the place. People helped each other through the hard times." For him, the situation was best summed up by an elderly listener who called in to say: "Ger, everyone loves Frank McCourt except the people who knew him. And everyone loves Angela's Ashes except the people who know the truth."
Angela's Ashes is a particularly searing account of the author's childhood in the Lanes of Limerick, depicted as a living hell where he and his brothers (those who didn't die in the cot) begged for food while neighbours looked on with cruel indifference and the local Catholic clergy humiliated the most wretched members of its flock.
The book, which won the 1997 Pulitzer prize for biography, begins with this now famous opening passage: "When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived it at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood."
Ger, as his fans affectionately address him, seems a bit of a local hero in Limerick. When we met up in the city's Bewley's café (Dublin's famous coffee house has become a fast-growing chain), several people came up to tell him what a grand job he was doing or to alert him to some local injustice he should sort out on the airwaves. Hannan claims to have received a hero's welcome after his showdown with McCourt on The Late Late Show. "I think they wanted his head brought back to Limerick on a plate," he recalled, beaming.
He admits to having got a frostier reception at the University of Limerick, which conferred an honorary degree on McCourt two years ago. "I know it annoys the intelligentsia to see some little gobshite stand up to the great author, but I'm only concerned about the common people and they're on my side."
Being only 40 himself, Hannan cannot draw upon his own experiences to contradict McCourt's recollections of the 1940s, far less the 1930s. But several of his relatives are contemporaries of McCourt, and it was they who first raised his suspicions about the book. His late uncle Martin, who went to school with Frank McCourt, fed him a lot of the background information for Ashes, which was billed as "The real memoirs of two boys from the Limerick Lanes". Paddy Hannan, his 74-year-old father, was particularly affronted by McCourt's portrayal of his mother, Angela, whom he remembers as the angel of the Lanes. "He makes her out to be good-for-nothing. Anyone who cuts their own mammy down like that deserves nothing."
McCourt is also accused of scandalising the family of Teresa Carmody by telling the world that he had sex with her just days before she died of tuberculosis. McCourt maintains that she never existed and that the name was made up.
Such explanations have failed to silence his detractors, including those on the local newspaper The Limerick Leader. At one point it published a half-page of photographs showing McCourt as a member of St Joseph's Boy Scouts. Pointing out that this particular scout troop was regarded as the élite of Limerick, the headline asked: "Is this the picture of misery?"
McCourt, a handsome, snow-haired figure who penned his memoirs after teaching for many years in New York high schools, tried to laugh off such assaults. "Begrudgers," he told the Boston Globe. "Where would Ireland be without them?" He dismissed the complaints as "peripheral", describing Angela's Ashes as "a memoir, not an exact history". He has owned up to one falsehood. In the book, schoolmate Willie Harold is depicted walking to his first confession "whispering about his big sin, that he looked at his sister's naked body". Willie Harold never had a sister, a point he brought to McCourt's attention when, in the advanced stages of cancer, he queued at a book-signing to set the record straight. McCourt claims to have settled the matter amicably by granting his old chum a free copy. It is impossible to verify this, as Harold has since died.
He'll have to do a lot more than sign a free copy to silence Gerry Hannan, who is plainly basking in the limelight of hisvendetta. In the back office of his bookstore he has a fat file containing all the stories his claims have generated on both sides of the Atlantic. He also got to vent his spleen on The South Bank Show when it profiled Frank McCourt recently. Is he obsessive? Gerry Hannan doesn't think so. "I've got a lot of other things in my life, but I do have a tremendous sense of loyalty to my listeners, who inundated me for weeks and weeks with their heartfelt complaints about Frank McCourt."
Whatever, the feud will enter a new chapter as Alan Parker's film of Angela's Ashes hits the screens. The producers of The Late Late Show would doubtless be keen to stage a second bout. Whether McCourt will allow himself to be ambushed again is highly doubtful. Hannan, who was carefully primed by an RTE researcher for his first ever appearance on prime time television, is certainly up for a rematch. "I don't just want to eyeball him in a television studio," Hannan told The Independent. "I want Frank McCourt to take me to court, where the truth about his book will come out for the whole world to see."
Next week's film début of Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt's stirring memoir of his Limerick childhood, is eagerly awaited. But for local radio host Gerry Hannan it is a vicious slur on his city
Tuesday, 4 January 2000
Frank McCourt must have done scores of interviews to plug 'Tis, the sequel to Angela's Ashes, his global bestseller about growing up dirt poor in the priest-ridden, rain-sodden slums of Limerick. But all these encounters put together could not have been anywhere near as painful as the prime-time television appearance he made back in his native Ireland recently.
Frank McCourt must have done scores of interviews to plug 'Tis, the sequel to Angela's Ashes, his global bestseller about growing up dirt poor in the priest-ridden, rain-sodden slums of Limerick. But all these encounters put together could not have been anywhere near as painful as the prime-time television appearance he made back in his native Ireland recently.
It wasn't Pat Kenny, host of The Late Late Show, who gave him a hard time. The trouble came from a member of the Dublin studio audience. "You have been peddling lies about Limerick," the man bellowed into the microphone. "You are a liar, a self-confessed liar." McCourt could only raise his arms to the heavens and appeal to his accuser in his strange but weirdly soothing mid-Atlantic accent: "I don't know why you're so obsessed with me. Why don't you get a life and go and do something?"
His plea fell on deaf ears, for a large part of Gerry Hannan's life is now devoted to stirring up controversy around McCourt. His personal crusade to "set the record straight" will crank up a gear next week when the movie version of Angela's Ashes rolls on to cinema screens. Hannan, who combines local broadcasting with running a second-hand bookshop in Limerick, has even penned two books as direct ripostes to McCourt's memoirs. The first was called simply Ashes. The second, due for release next week, is even more opportunistically entitled 'Tis In Me Ass, an expression straight from the language of the Lanes, the now notorious backstreets on the north side of Limerick where McCourt endured his miserable childhood.
The main outlet for Hannan's literary vendetta isn't his books - which will never rival their targets in the bestseller lists - but the late-night phone-in programme he presents on Limerick 95. The radio station provides a regular platform for critics of McCourt, who seem to be both numerous and vocal in the author's native city.
No one is getting terribly worked up about 'Tis, which tells of young Frank's escape from Limerick to America and what he found there. Hannan's tribute to "the people who didn't run off to America but instead stayed at home to help build a city" doesn't pack anywhere near the same animus as Ashes, which was a far more pointed attack on Angela's Ashes.
According to his arch critic, McCourt's upbringing wasn't anywhere near as brutal as he makes out. "When you read Angela's Ashes, it's misery, misery, misery all the way," says Hannan. "That's not how it is remembered by anyone else who lived there. Of course there was a lot of poverty and suffering, but there was also a great spirit to the place. People helped each other through the hard times." For him, the situation was best summed up by an elderly listener who called in to say: "Ger, everyone loves Frank McCourt except the people who knew him. And everyone loves Angela's Ashes except the people who know the truth."
Angela's Ashes is a particularly searing account of the author's childhood in the Lanes of Limerick, depicted as a living hell where he and his brothers (those who didn't die in the cot) begged for food while neighbours looked on with cruel indifference and the local Catholic clergy humiliated the most wretched members of its flock.
The book, which won the 1997 Pulitzer prize for biography, begins with this now famous opening passage: "When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived it at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood."
Ger, as his fans affectionately address him, seems a bit of a local hero in Limerick. When we met up in the city's Bewley's café (Dublin's famous coffee house has become a fast-growing chain), several people came up to tell him what a grand job he was doing or to alert him to some local injustice he should sort out on the airwaves. Hannan claims to have received a hero's welcome after his showdown with McCourt on The Late Late Show. "I think they wanted his head brought back to Limerick on a plate," he recalled, beaming.
He admits to having got a frostier reception at the University of Limerick, which conferred an honorary degree on McCourt two years ago. "I know it annoys the intelligentsia to see some little gobshite stand up to the great author, but I'm only concerned about the common people and they're on my side."
Being only 40 himself, Hannan cannot draw upon his own experiences to contradict McCourt's recollections of the 1940s, far less the 1930s. But several of his relatives are contemporaries of McCourt, and it was they who first raised his suspicions about the book. His late uncle Martin, who went to school with Frank McCourt, fed him a lot of the background information for Ashes, which was billed as "The real memoirs of two boys from the Limerick Lanes". Paddy Hannan, his 74-year-old father, was particularly affronted by McCourt's portrayal of his mother, Angela, whom he remembers as the angel of the Lanes. "He makes her out to be good-for-nothing. Anyone who cuts their own mammy down like that deserves nothing."
McCourt is also accused of scandalising the family of Teresa Carmody by telling the world that he had sex with her just days before she died of tuberculosis. McCourt maintains that she never existed and that the name was made up.
Such explanations have failed to silence his detractors, including those on the local newspaper The Limerick Leader. At one point it published a half-page of photographs showing McCourt as a member of St Joseph's Boy Scouts. Pointing out that this particular scout troop was regarded as the élite of Limerick, the headline asked: "Is this the picture of misery?"
McCourt, a handsome, snow-haired figure who penned his memoirs after teaching for many years in New York high schools, tried to laugh off such assaults. "Begrudgers," he told the Boston Globe. "Where would Ireland be without them?" He dismissed the complaints as "peripheral", describing Angela's Ashes as "a memoir, not an exact history". He has owned up to one falsehood. In the book, schoolmate Willie Harold is depicted walking to his first confession "whispering about his big sin, that he looked at his sister's naked body". Willie Harold never had a sister, a point he brought to McCourt's attention when, in the advanced stages of cancer, he queued at a book-signing to set the record straight. McCourt claims to have settled the matter amicably by granting his old chum a free copy. It is impossible to verify this, as Harold has since died.
He'll have to do a lot more than sign a free copy to silence Gerry Hannan, who is plainly basking in the limelight of hisvendetta. In the back office of his bookstore he has a fat file containing all the stories his claims have generated on both sides of the Atlantic. He also got to vent his spleen on The South Bank Show when it profiled Frank McCourt recently. Is he obsessive? Gerry Hannan doesn't think so. "I've got a lot of other things in my life, but I do have a tremendous sense of loyalty to my listeners, who inundated me for weeks and weeks with their heartfelt complaints about Frank McCourt."
Whatever, the feud will enter a new chapter as Alan Parker's film of Angela's Ashes hits the screens. The producers of The Late Late Show would doubtless be keen to stage a second bout. Whether McCourt will allow himself to be ambushed again is highly doubtful. Hannan, who was carefully primed by an RTE researcher for his first ever appearance on prime time television, is certainly up for a rematch. "I don't just want to eyeball him in a television studio," Hannan told The Independent. "I want Frank McCourt to take me to court, where the truth about his book will come out for the whole world to see."
An 'exclusive' statement made online by Gerry Hannan
Let me make it crystal clear from the word 'go' that the McCourt family have my deepest sympathies at the loss of a family member and thats where it begins and ends. I never once had any issue with the late Mr. McCourt other than the “inconsistencies�� in his book where he showed nothing but utter contempt for many people when he relayed untruths about them and thought it was OK to do so because they were dead.
He was wrong. I challenged him on these inaccuracies on Live TV because it was the only chance I ever had to do so and the TV appearance was pre-arranged with Mr. Pat Kenny and his producer Mr. Will Hannafin. They knew long in advance what questions were going to be asked and the tone in which they would be asked and McCourt was previously advised of my appearance. I do concede that they may have been guilty of totally miscalculating the ferocity of my attack.
There is a total of 117 inconsistencies in Angela's Ashes and I can recount all of them at will. However, I have been often asked to name the main points and these are the ones that concern me most.
There are three main points here and they are as follows:
1.McCourt wrote about Willie Harrold that he charged his friends money to watch his (Harrolds) sisters undressing. Harrold had no sisters. This may seem like a minor offence to most people but we must be clear that Mr. Harrold was, in fact, an 'Icon' of the Catholic Church in Limerick and was held in very high esteem by his contemporaries. He was nicknamed the apostle of Limerick and was the only man, of his generation, to be awarded a papal medal for his involvent in the Holy Confraternity Church and his work with the St. Vincent de Paul movement of that time. To suggest that Mr. Harrold was charging children money to masturabate was, to that generation, the equivalent of saying that he was a sick pervert. Nothing could be further from the truth. However, McCourt was misinformed about Harrolds demise and was confronted by Mr. Harrold about the inconsistency at a book signing in Limerick. McCourt apologised and gave a free book, by way of compensation, to Harrold who accepted it because he was a peace loving man who did not wish to tamper with McCourts new found success.
2.McCourt recounted a story involving Teresa Carmody. He says that he called to her house as a Telegram boy (In fact, the Limerick General Post Office have kept records of all employees, full and part time since it's foundation in Limerick and there is no record of McCourt ever being employed there) and she made him undress and performned oral sex on him.Again, to those who know no better a very seemingly harmless tale. The reality is that Teresa Carmody was also known by her contemporaries as 'the little flower of Limerick' and her parents were the owners of a local shop used by Angela McCourt who was refused further credit because she would or could not pay her bills. Little Teresa's mother worked (as McCourt stated in his book) in Woolworths on O'Connell Street when Teresa died of consumption. The people of the Lanes of Limerick were totally united in grief at the loss of such a well known and loved child and they, at least those who were still alive, were horrified to read in Angelas Ashes that she allegedly gave the young Frank a 'blow-job' on her death bed. She still has living relatives in Limerick, I have met them, and they are totally distressed at the horrendous allegation. McCourts explanation is that he 'made the name up'. If thats true and Teresa Carmody is a fictional character then is the 'mother' who worked at Woolworths fictional too?
3.McCourt wrote that he lay in his bedroom listening to his mother 'having the excitement' in the attic with her first cousin Laman (Gerry)Griffin in order to pay the rent. A complete search of all well documented records showed no records of Mr. Griffin sharing accomodation with Mrs. McCourt, he was living with two other women and Angela was documented as being resident at a different address when the 'excitement' event occurred. Mr. Griffin was another Limerick icon and was well known as a member of the Munster Rugby team that won the Bateman Cup in 1933. he was a Limerick hero and we are asked to belive that he was screwing his first cousin for rent. McCourts brother Malachy was refused membership of the Munster Rugby team in the late 1930s.
McCourt had a lot of axes to grind with his book and three Limerick institutions, via their respective 'icons' are attacked here and they are St. Vincent De Paul, Catholic Church and Munster Rugby.
I am happy I challenged him and in the same set of circumstances I would do the same thing again without batting an eyelid. My main critics are, for the most part, are far too young to know the actual facts of the situation and my supporters, for the most part, are McCourts contemporaries including Richard Harris whose family owned and ran the local Mill where many of the residents of the Lanes of Limerick were employed. He granted me a three-hour 'Live-On-Air' interview (I still have the full recording) and endorced every word I ever said about McCourt as being the absolute truth.
My sources are hundreds of listeners who participated in numerous radio shows ( I still have recordings of all these shows) who told me their interpretation of the facts about life on the Lanes of Limerick. I also spoke for many hours with my own Aunt Josephine O'Reilly who was a personal friend of Angela McCourt and went to Bingo with her two or three times a week for many years. Angela was a regular visitor to my family's home on the Lanes of Limerick. I also quoted my late Uncle Martin Hannan who had very clear and precise stories with amazing detail about his life as a friend of the McCourt family. I am a direct descendant of the Hannan family who are heavily featured throughout the text of Angela's Ashes.
I was angered by the 'spirit' of the book and I reacted accordingly. I have no regrets and those who criticise me have every right to do so. I rerspect your right to have an opinion but I also demand the right to have my opionion respected too. I am not looking for endorsement from any other person.
Finally, some people in other threads are questioning my connection to Mr. Frank Hamilton a convicted sex-offender who was named, by McCourts wife (Elizabeth) on the LATE LATE SHOW (October 1999) as having made some kind of contribution to my book ASHES.
I worked as a Journalist in Limerick for many years and was employed in the latter end of my Journalistic career with the short-lived LIMERICK TRIBUNE newspaper and Hamiliton was the Editor. In short, he was my boss prior to the revelations about his crimes. He also worked at RADIO LIMERICK ONE as a newscaster and broadcaster and short of talking with him over coffee from time to time there was no other connection. He had no hand, act nor part in my book and I have no idea why Mrs. McCourt would suggest otherwise.
I was also asked why did I decide to post the HANNAN VS MCCOURT footage on Youtube. I did so because I have been many times asked by members of the international media where they could acquire a copy of the footage. I have had this footage for over 10 years and I think it has minor historical signifigance It is there for anybody to see and when I deem it fit I will remove it.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Gerard J. Hannan
23.07.2009
He was wrong. I challenged him on these inaccuracies on Live TV because it was the only chance I ever had to do so and the TV appearance was pre-arranged with Mr. Pat Kenny and his producer Mr. Will Hannafin. They knew long in advance what questions were going to be asked and the tone in which they would be asked and McCourt was previously advised of my appearance. I do concede that they may have been guilty of totally miscalculating the ferocity of my attack.
There is a total of 117 inconsistencies in Angela's Ashes and I can recount all of them at will. However, I have been often asked to name the main points and these are the ones that concern me most.
There are three main points here and they are as follows:
1.McCourt wrote about Willie Harrold that he charged his friends money to watch his (Harrolds) sisters undressing. Harrold had no sisters. This may seem like a minor offence to most people but we must be clear that Mr. Harrold was, in fact, an 'Icon' of the Catholic Church in Limerick and was held in very high esteem by his contemporaries. He was nicknamed the apostle of Limerick and was the only man, of his generation, to be awarded a papal medal for his involvent in the Holy Confraternity Church and his work with the St. Vincent de Paul movement of that time. To suggest that Mr. Harrold was charging children money to masturabate was, to that generation, the equivalent of saying that he was a sick pervert. Nothing could be further from the truth. However, McCourt was misinformed about Harrolds demise and was confronted by Mr. Harrold about the inconsistency at a book signing in Limerick. McCourt apologised and gave a free book, by way of compensation, to Harrold who accepted it because he was a peace loving man who did not wish to tamper with McCourts new found success.
2.McCourt recounted a story involving Teresa Carmody. He says that he called to her house as a Telegram boy (In fact, the Limerick General Post Office have kept records of all employees, full and part time since it's foundation in Limerick and there is no record of McCourt ever being employed there) and she made him undress and performned oral sex on him.Again, to those who know no better a very seemingly harmless tale. The reality is that Teresa Carmody was also known by her contemporaries as 'the little flower of Limerick' and her parents were the owners of a local shop used by Angela McCourt who was refused further credit because she would or could not pay her bills. Little Teresa's mother worked (as McCourt stated in his book) in Woolworths on O'Connell Street when Teresa died of consumption. The people of the Lanes of Limerick were totally united in grief at the loss of such a well known and loved child and they, at least those who were still alive, were horrified to read in Angelas Ashes that she allegedly gave the young Frank a 'blow-job' on her death bed. She still has living relatives in Limerick, I have met them, and they are totally distressed at the horrendous allegation. McCourts explanation is that he 'made the name up'. If thats true and Teresa Carmody is a fictional character then is the 'mother' who worked at Woolworths fictional too?
3.McCourt wrote that he lay in his bedroom listening to his mother 'having the excitement' in the attic with her first cousin Laman (Gerry)Griffin in order to pay the rent. A complete search of all well documented records showed no records of Mr. Griffin sharing accomodation with Mrs. McCourt, he was living with two other women and Angela was documented as being resident at a different address when the 'excitement' event occurred. Mr. Griffin was another Limerick icon and was well known as a member of the Munster Rugby team that won the Bateman Cup in 1933. he was a Limerick hero and we are asked to belive that he was screwing his first cousin for rent. McCourts brother Malachy was refused membership of the Munster Rugby team in the late 1930s.
McCourt had a lot of axes to grind with his book and three Limerick institutions, via their respective 'icons' are attacked here and they are St. Vincent De Paul, Catholic Church and Munster Rugby.
I am happy I challenged him and in the same set of circumstances I would do the same thing again without batting an eyelid. My main critics are, for the most part, are far too young to know the actual facts of the situation and my supporters, for the most part, are McCourts contemporaries including Richard Harris whose family owned and ran the local Mill where many of the residents of the Lanes of Limerick were employed. He granted me a three-hour 'Live-On-Air' interview (I still have the full recording) and endorced every word I ever said about McCourt as being the absolute truth.
My sources are hundreds of listeners who participated in numerous radio shows ( I still have recordings of all these shows) who told me their interpretation of the facts about life on the Lanes of Limerick. I also spoke for many hours with my own Aunt Josephine O'Reilly who was a personal friend of Angela McCourt and went to Bingo with her two or three times a week for many years. Angela was a regular visitor to my family's home on the Lanes of Limerick. I also quoted my late Uncle Martin Hannan who had very clear and precise stories with amazing detail about his life as a friend of the McCourt family. I am a direct descendant of the Hannan family who are heavily featured throughout the text of Angela's Ashes.
I was angered by the 'spirit' of the book and I reacted accordingly. I have no regrets and those who criticise me have every right to do so. I rerspect your right to have an opinion but I also demand the right to have my opionion respected too. I am not looking for endorsement from any other person.
Finally, some people in other threads are questioning my connection to Mr. Frank Hamilton a convicted sex-offender who was named, by McCourts wife (Elizabeth) on the LATE LATE SHOW (October 1999) as having made some kind of contribution to my book ASHES.
I worked as a Journalist in Limerick for many years and was employed in the latter end of my Journalistic career with the short-lived LIMERICK TRIBUNE newspaper and Hamiliton was the Editor. In short, he was my boss prior to the revelations about his crimes. He also worked at RADIO LIMERICK ONE as a newscaster and broadcaster and short of talking with him over coffee from time to time there was no other connection. He had no hand, act nor part in my book and I have no idea why Mrs. McCourt would suggest otherwise.
I was also asked why did I decide to post the HANNAN VS MCCOURT footage on Youtube. I did so because I have been many times asked by members of the international media where they could acquire a copy of the footage. I have had this footage for over 10 years and I think it has minor historical signifigance It is there for anybody to see and when I deem it fit I will remove it.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Gerard J. Hannan
23.07.2009
Gerry Hannan "banned from blogging"
Gerry Hannan has been banned from the Limerick blogger forum. I dont know the reason why he was banned, but i have an idea. If anybody can shed some light as to why Gerry was banned, please do so by leaving a comment or preferably email us. The banning of Gerry Hannan from the Limerick blogger forum comes as a surprize to me, the reason being Hannan was a paying advertiser in the past on the Limerick blogger. He used to advertsie his Limerick online internet cafe
Gerry Hannan Late Late show video
Gerry Hannan has removed the video on youtube of his appearance on the Late Late show.
Monday, July 27, 2009
A search for Limerick online with cro.ie for Limerick online
Company
Type
Company
Number 444631
Name
LIMERICK ONLINE INTERNET CAFE LIMITED
Address
52 WILLIAM STREET
LIMERICK
Registered
14/08/2007
Status
Normal
Last AR Date
14/02/2008
Next AR Date
14/02/2009
The 'Next AR Date' refers to the statutory Annual Return Date (ARD). This is a date after 1 March 2002 to which an annual return should be made up. If a company has annual returns outstanding for previous years the obligation to file these returns is a continuing one.
Last Accounts To Date
N/A
Type
Company
Number 444631
Name
LIMERICK ONLINE INTERNET CAFE LIMITED
Address
52 WILLIAM STREET
LIMERICK
Registered
14/08/2007
Status
Normal
Last AR Date
14/02/2008
Next AR Date
14/02/2009
The 'Next AR Date' refers to the statutory Annual Return Date (ARD). This is a date after 1 March 2002 to which an annual return should be made up. If a company has annual returns outstanding for previous years the obligation to file these returns is a continuing one.
Last Accounts To Date
N/A
An online ad for Gerry Hannan's internet cafe Limerick online
Internet Cafes
LOL! Limerick-On-Line Internet Cafe & Coffee Bar, 52 William Street, Limerick is an ultra-modern spacious and hi-speed access (10MB) internet cafe in the heart of Limerick City Centre. Management and Staff are dedicated to offering customers a comfortable, spacious and private web-surfing experience. Our coffee-bar (based loosely on the concept of Starbucks but definitely Irish) offers an impressive range of hot and cold drinks and our snack bar is stocked with the best of Irish products. We have designed the internet cafe side of our business to give the customer total and absolute privacy as they surf because we believe thats how it should be. Too many internet cafes in Ireland are designed to get the maximum number of computers into the minimum space thus sacrificeing comfort and privacy. We have done the reverse and our steadily building clientele clearly approve of our concept. We charge €1.00 per 20 Minutes and €0.25 per 5 minutes thereafter. Our coffee bar only offers BEWLEYS FAIRTRADE Coffees & Teas and we also have an excellent range of Herbal & Chai Teas. Our Opening Hours are 8.00am to 8.00pm/ 7 Days A Week and usually later if trade demands. Call us for more information on
LOL! Limerick-On-Line Internet Cafe & Coffee Bar, 52 William Street, Limerick is an ultra-modern spacious and hi-speed access (10MB) internet cafe in the heart of Limerick City Centre. Management and Staff are dedicated to offering customers a comfortable, spacious and private web-surfing experience. Our coffee-bar (based loosely on the concept of Starbucks but definitely Irish) offers an impressive range of hot and cold drinks and our snack bar is stocked with the best of Irish products. We have designed the internet cafe side of our business to give the customer total and absolute privacy as they surf because we believe thats how it should be. Too many internet cafes in Ireland are designed to get the maximum number of computers into the minimum space thus sacrificeing comfort and privacy. We have done the reverse and our steadily building clientele clearly approve of our concept. We charge €1.00 per 20 Minutes and €0.25 per 5 minutes thereafter. Our coffee bar only offers BEWLEYS FAIRTRADE Coffees & Teas and we also have an excellent range of Herbal & Chai Teas. Our Opening Hours are 8.00am to 8.00pm/ 7 Days A Week and usually later if trade demands. Call us for more information on
More on Hannan's RLO
FACTSHEET
Location:
Limerick
Frequency:
95.0 FM
RLO, broadcasting on 95FM, was Limerick's first legal independent radio station, and it
came on air in November 1989. After years of various pirate activity around the region, RLO had a hard
act to follow to cater for all music tastes, but it also had quite an amount of experience to choose from.
Once the main audio clip is complete, click on the RLO logo opposite to hear more audio from the station. RLO NEWS
RLO's launch was accompanied by an eight-page newspaper detailing the station, its backroom team and presenters, and its programme schedule. Many of the faces and names were familiar to Limerick listeners from pirates such as RLWE, Raidio Luimni, Big L, CCR, Soundchannel and Hits 954, so the station's list included a large number of well-known and experienced broadcasters from day one.
One main memory from RLO's opening that I'd forgotten to mention here was the unfortunate startup that RLO had! Their advertised launch was on a Saturday at 10am, and the scheduled programming was to be the news followed by the weekly sports preview show. The stormy weather that weekend (as headlined in the main news bulletin from the station contained in the audio clip above) was to play a major part, and the station only lasted on-air about 10 minutes before going off the air due to a serious power fault in the area. It returned later that afternoon.
The jingles on the station were from the same jingle package as ERI's JAM package, and were a major feature in the the identity of the station. In fact, listening to these makes you wonder why stations don't use them anymore. The entire package consisted of many excellent "straight" jingles, as well as a great collection of pacers and transition cuts.
Click on the title page of the newspaper (above right) to view the programme schedule as listed in the RLO news - note that the file is
130K, and so will take a while to download, but it is a piece of radio history. The newspaper also included photographs of all of
the presenters, but since I know most of them (or more importantly, since they know me!) I'll refrain from uploading the photographs.
RLO went through a number of incarnations - the station had originally been named to allow for a second licensed Limerick station, and rumour has it that "Radio Limerick One" was being confused with "Radio One" by older folk. Whatever the actual reason, RLO was soon rechristened to become Radio Limerick 95FM - the station was also taken over by new owners. It was during this transition period around this time that I joined the station, and I subsequently worked there for over 2 years. During this time, RLO launched "Irish Satellite Radio", which broadcast to Europe on Satellite, and also allowed the "Overnight Network" to be relayed to other local stations in Ireland which had previously not provided a 24-hour service. A second name change, to "Limerick 95" came soon afterwards.
After I left the station, it lost its license and a new station, "The New 95FM" (now Live 95FM) commenced broadcasting on the 95.0 frequency. RLO moved up the FM band to 98FM, an unlicensed frequency that they disclaimed all knowledge of. A subsequent ad campaign cheekily declared "95 is a thing of the past - 98 is the future", before a tag line of "Windows 98 - coming to a PC near you!"
While the station initially retained it's name of "Limerick 95", just adding the "...on Satellite" tag, this caused some confusion, so the station later returned to its original name of RLO, and found a new home at 105FM.
RLO has since been rechristened RLO 105, and has a web presence at www.rlo105.com. The station is once again using the original jingle package, with the "95FM" and "Stereo 95FM" sections edited out. This incarnation of the station is regularly in the news due to it's ongoing feud with the IRTC/BCI and ComReg, and it has been raided on numerous occasions. The most recent raid was the most significant, and it resulted in the station moving premises and changing its telephone number. The station's current output is aimed solely at the over-50 age group, with phone-ins, on-air singalongs and nostalgia being a regular feature, although much of the output seems to be aimed with the sole purpose of being controversial.
Location:
Limerick
Frequency:
95.0 FM
RLO, broadcasting on 95FM, was Limerick's first legal independent radio station, and it
came on air in November 1989. After years of various pirate activity around the region, RLO had a hard
act to follow to cater for all music tastes, but it also had quite an amount of experience to choose from.
Once the main audio clip is complete, click on the RLO logo opposite to hear more audio from the station. RLO NEWS
RLO's launch was accompanied by an eight-page newspaper detailing the station, its backroom team and presenters, and its programme schedule. Many of the faces and names were familiar to Limerick listeners from pirates such as RLWE, Raidio Luimni, Big L, CCR, Soundchannel and Hits 954, so the station's list included a large number of well-known and experienced broadcasters from day one.
One main memory from RLO's opening that I'd forgotten to mention here was the unfortunate startup that RLO had! Their advertised launch was on a Saturday at 10am, and the scheduled programming was to be the news followed by the weekly sports preview show. The stormy weather that weekend (as headlined in the main news bulletin from the station contained in the audio clip above) was to play a major part, and the station only lasted on-air about 10 minutes before going off the air due to a serious power fault in the area. It returned later that afternoon.
The jingles on the station were from the same jingle package as ERI's JAM package, and were a major feature in the the identity of the station. In fact, listening to these makes you wonder why stations don't use them anymore. The entire package consisted of many excellent "straight" jingles, as well as a great collection of pacers and transition cuts.
Click on the title page of the newspaper (above right) to view the programme schedule as listed in the RLO news - note that the file is
130K, and so will take a while to download, but it is a piece of radio history. The newspaper also included photographs of all of
the presenters, but since I know most of them (or more importantly, since they know me!) I'll refrain from uploading the photographs.
RLO went through a number of incarnations - the station had originally been named to allow for a second licensed Limerick station, and rumour has it that "Radio Limerick One" was being confused with "Radio One" by older folk. Whatever the actual reason, RLO was soon rechristened to become Radio Limerick 95FM - the station was also taken over by new owners. It was during this transition period around this time that I joined the station, and I subsequently worked there for over 2 years. During this time, RLO launched "Irish Satellite Radio", which broadcast to Europe on Satellite, and also allowed the "Overnight Network" to be relayed to other local stations in Ireland which had previously not provided a 24-hour service. A second name change, to "Limerick 95" came soon afterwards.
After I left the station, it lost its license and a new station, "The New 95FM" (now Live 95FM) commenced broadcasting on the 95.0 frequency. RLO moved up the FM band to 98FM, an unlicensed frequency that they disclaimed all knowledge of. A subsequent ad campaign cheekily declared "95 is a thing of the past - 98 is the future", before a tag line of "Windows 98 - coming to a PC near you!"
While the station initially retained it's name of "Limerick 95", just adding the "...on Satellite" tag, this caused some confusion, so the station later returned to its original name of RLO, and found a new home at 105FM.
RLO has since been rechristened RLO 105, and has a web presence at www.rlo105.com. The station is once again using the original jingle package, with the "95FM" and "Stereo 95FM" sections edited out. This incarnation of the station is regularly in the news due to it's ongoing feud with the IRTC/BCI and ComReg, and it has been raided on numerous occasions. The most recent raid was the most significant, and it resulted in the station moving premises and changing its telephone number. The station's current output is aimed solely at the over-50 age group, with phone-ins, on-air singalongs and nostalgia being a regular feature, although much of the output seems to be aimed with the sole purpose of being controversial.
Hannan's RLO wikipedia article
Radio Limerick One
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Radio Limerick one
Broadcast area Limerick / Munster
Slogan Closer to you
Frequency Formerly 105.0, 100.0, 90.5MHz
First air date October, 1989
Format Pop / Variety/ Chat
Owner Gerard Madden
Website [1]
Radio Limerick One, also called Limerick 95FM and RLO at times, was an Irish pirate radio station, which was the licensed radio station serving Limerick city and county. Licenced by the Independent Radio and Television Commission in 1989, its licence was removed in 1996 for misbehaviour, although the station did not leave the airwaves. It was eventually replaced by Limerick's Live 95FM as the licenced operator.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 History
* 2 Irish Satellite Radio
* 3 Pirate operation
* 4 RLO TV
* 5 Media Archive
* 6 Articles
* 7 External links
[edit] History
The station started broadcasting in October 1989 from studios in Dooradoyle, Limerick. An 4 page flyer was distributed to every household in Limerick promoting the new station before it started. Its early days were the most memorable as the station had separate radio shows covering about 20 different topics; given Limerick's tradition for a multitude of high-quality pirates covering a wide range of tastes, having a single station to cater for everybody was a task, but one which RLO took to with ease, assisted by the talents of many of those former pirates.
The jingles provided by Alfasound were especially memorable. Initially the main presenters at the station were Dr. John Moloney, Declan Copues, Pamela Wilson, Francis Jones and Ger Bradshaw. "Stereo 95 FM, Radio Limerick One" was how one of their main jingles used to go, with the station's catchphrase, "Closer to You", being the main thrust in the promotion of the station to a community that had been starved of local, non-Dublin-focussed radio.
Due to falling ratings the station rebranded itself as Limerick 95FM and moved to 100 O'Connell St. in the centre of Limerick city, around 1992. Changes in ownership occurred through the years as well. During this period, the station became among the first Irish radio stations to transmit via satellite - a service called "Ireland's Overnight Network", allowing other stations to air its generic overnight content in order to operate 24 hours a day without relying on automated playlists.
[edit] Irish Satellite Radio
Limerick 95FM also had a sister station for a time called Irish Satellite Radio broadcast via Astra 1B on frequency 11538 V. The station was on the VH1 TV channel transponder using the analogue transmission system known as Panda.
The Astra satellite allowed the station to broadcast to Europe and parts of North Africa. ISR was popular with listeners around the world including ex-pats who enjoyed listening to another Irish radio station, an alternative to RTÉ Radio 1, which incidentally also broadcast from the same transponder.
Both the UK and Germany in particular tuned into Astra 1 transmissions due to their respective countries subscription TV packages emanating from the bird. Thus Irish satellite radio picked up a large audience from subscribers to the Sky UK service or indeed people who had installed free-to-air satellite equipment. Several prominent satellite TV listings magazines including Satellite Times and What Satellite TV listed the stations program schedule every month.
The studio was upstairs in the former Limerick 95FM building on O'Connell Street. It featured a different schedule, programs and news than the Local variant but at times would simulcast with Limerick 95FM for special events.
[edit] Pirate operation
In controversial circumstances which would see court actions continuing in to the next century, the station lost its license in 1996. However, it continued broadcasting almost continuously as a pirate broadcaster, both on FM and satellite. Its satellite licens was removed [2] in 1999 by the Radio Authority in the UK (who had issued it) due to intervention by the then IRTC in Ireland; although its FM broadcasts stayed near continuous until the Comreg clamp-downs on pirate broadcasting in the early 2000s, and has continued rebroadcasting after continuous raids. It was the most raided station by Comreg for a number of years, often aggressively with one ending in cutting down the mast with no regard for health and safety.
During the pirate years Radio Limerick One continued to operate as it did when it was a licensed station. News bulletins were broadcast hourly by the newsroom staff such as Anne O' Grady and Aodhan Halligan with night time reports from UK commercial service IRN. Local obituaries were also read several times a day by the on-air presenter. RLO also had a dedicated sports team headed up by the then GAA PRO John Ryan and including Keith Fitzpatrick, Dominic Fitzgerald and many more. Local Gaelic Athletic Association matches were broadcast during season on Sundays using professional outside broadcast equipment where permitted. The station had a full schedule of programming from 7am-1am.
In the Morning, the breakfast show featured a mix of classic hits, news, weather and travel reports and some chat with presenters such as John Moloney, Sean Griffin and Eric Clarke.
This was followed in the afternoon with a lean towards Oldies/M.O.R/Country music often presented by Ger Bradshaw, formerly of Limerick 95fm, Darren Moloney and Fergus Hannan.
Drive-time and evenings featured a 60s/70s/80s music mix over the years including Francis Jones, Fintan Moloney and many others.
The night time hours of RLO typically featured chat shows. The "Late and Live" show was a phone in program made popular by Gerry Hannan. Uniquely the show had little or no telephone screening process thus meaning most anyone could get on the air. This led to some controversial incidents over the years and the show was infamous for its "anything goes" approach.
During overnight hours non-stop classic hits were played and in the latter years the "Late and Live" program would be repeated throughout the night.
In 2002, it applied for, was refused, and appealed to no effect a license to operate a medium wave service in the city of Limerick The license was won by a group chaired by Joe Harrington, a former RLO presenter and ironically never went on air.
During its period as a pirate, much use has been made of the Radio Data System to provide politically loaded messages to users with suitable equipment, ranging from "NO RLO NO VOTE" during a protest at the 2002 Irish General Election to "HELP RLO STOP BCI SLEEZE", a message of such length as to require scrolling. This only provoked more raids and court cases.
The studio somehow was never touched due to trickery from the in-house engineers. Offset satellite frequencies were used to link to the hill so they couldn't be scoped, graphed and presented in courts. As technology become more available the station was surrounded by an internet cafe, which linked the radio by internet protocol to the local area network. This was genius as the link was then transmitted to an intermediate hop (which used the dreaded capture frequencies) only meters away isolating the station wholly from broadcasting on illegally. It could now never be touched. Thus consequently the BCI hit the hill-sites harder. WI-FI now surrounds this type of technology.
It reverted back to its old name Radio Limerick One and those memorable jingles were once again refreshed in the minds of the people of Limerick. It was recently under the management on Gerry Hannan who also hosted a popular night time chat show. The studio was moved to his local shop.
After a Comreg raid on December 13, 2006, the station never returned. The engineers and 'community groups' are now busy working on other projects. Current owner Gerry Hannan announced he intended to go the legal route of IP broadcasting online. [3]. This involved broadcasting by web, anyone with a wireless router and broadband service could buy a WI-FI radio and tune in legally. However, the service was short lived and RLO has remained off air since.
Notable former presenters from the pirate incarnation of RLO to subsequently work on other radio stations include Francis Jones on Radio Kerry as well as John Moloney and Sean Buckley who are both now on Tipperary Mid west radio and Enda Caldwell now at 106.5 Riviera Radio in Monaco. Colm Mcgrath is in Cork and Padraig Gallagher on Newstalk. Throughout the years most of the Live95fm presenters and staff worked for RLO.
Other programs include comedy legend Tom O'Donnell (Dear Hearts and Gentle People), Fr. Cletus Noone (Noone at Night), Tony Browne (Local History show), Frank Carberry (The Politics Show, Darren Moloney (American and Irish country, Classic Love, Top 40 show), Fergus Hannon (Saturday Sportsbeat), Fintan Moloney (Solid Gold Sunday), Dale Clancy (Top 8 at 8), Eric Murphy (Pillow Talk) and Sean Buckley (Buckley's People).
[edit] RLO TV
Radio Limerick one owner Gerard Madden also operated a local TV station under the name RLO TV. The station was initially broadcast from the Sirius satellite commencing in 1998 and also transmitted in later years via Hotbird on the frequency 12.597 GHz.
Free satellite equipment was offered to pubs and establishments around the city and county to facilitate reception of Ireland's first digital television channel.
The satellite incarnation of the channel featured a schedule that was looped every few hours with pre-recorded programs presented by several staff from the radio station. The broadcast was uplinked from London, a staff member flew each day with a new tape to play every morning and flew home again.
Programs included the Sean Buckley fronted "Buckleys people" with regular chat style interviews featuring local dignitaries and "Dr. John's Diaries" presented by breakfast show host John Moloney.
Many other programs were featured on the schedule at this time including recorded coverage of Local Gaelic Athletic Association games often unseen on other channels, Irish music video showcases and other general entertainment fare all produced in house at the RLO studios.
After a brief period broadcasting from Hotbird, satellite transmissions ceased on the 1st January 1999.
Upon obtaining several licenses to deflect UK terrestrial TV stations to the county area of the region, the station began broadcasting on UHF Channel 51 from Woodcock Hill to Limerick city. This was linked directly to the main studio and live broadcasting could begin. Gerry Hannan's "Late & Live" radio programme was broadcast live on TV showing the radio studio. Provisions were being sought to set up equipment at prominent 'guests' private houses to broadcast live from, but this never came to light. Live production began on the second floor and the radio was suppressed on one channel to up-link to the hill-sites. There were two other transmission sites at Newcastlewest and Knockfierna intended for reception in the county.
Superimposing background images of limerick on green screens with high end technology began on the Gerry Hannan, Tom O'Donnell and History show. Lighting, sound, vision and transmission were all handled in-house. Staff were trained with high end digital editing suites and high resolution camera's for the time.
At night time Channel 5 was rebroadcast between RLO TV shows. Broadcasts were usually between 22:00 and 01:00 with the frequency reverting to Channel 5 straight after the local broadcast had ended.
During this period, a live element was introduced. Cameras were set up in the Radio Limerick one studio and joint TV/Radio simulcasts began. Programs that were featured in this live format included Gerry Hannan Late and Live, The Tom O' Donnell show, The History show and John Ryan's regular GAA special, broadcast both in and out of studio usually titled "Up for the final".
The station thrived while it was on air and featured adverts from local sponsors. After an ODTR raid in 2001 the radio and TV equipment were seized and the channel never returned.
Previous staff from RLO TV included Bridget O Grady, Keith Fitzpatrick, Mark Dempsey, Dale Clancy, Valerie Nolan, Dominic Fitzgerald, Colm McGrath, Eric Murphy, Enda Caldwell Darren Moloney, Anne O Grady, Fintan Moloney, Simon McGuire.
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Radio Limerick one
Broadcast area Limerick / Munster
Slogan Closer to you
Frequency Formerly 105.0, 100.0, 90.5MHz
First air date October, 1989
Format Pop / Variety/ Chat
Owner Gerard Madden
Website [1]
Radio Limerick One, also called Limerick 95FM and RLO at times, was an Irish pirate radio station, which was the licensed radio station serving Limerick city and county. Licenced by the Independent Radio and Television Commission in 1989, its licence was removed in 1996 for misbehaviour, although the station did not leave the airwaves. It was eventually replaced by Limerick's Live 95FM as the licenced operator.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 History
* 2 Irish Satellite Radio
* 3 Pirate operation
* 4 RLO TV
* 5 Media Archive
* 6 Articles
* 7 External links
[edit] History
The station started broadcasting in October 1989 from studios in Dooradoyle, Limerick. An 4 page flyer was distributed to every household in Limerick promoting the new station before it started. Its early days were the most memorable as the station had separate radio shows covering about 20 different topics; given Limerick's tradition for a multitude of high-quality pirates covering a wide range of tastes, having a single station to cater for everybody was a task, but one which RLO took to with ease, assisted by the talents of many of those former pirates.
The jingles provided by Alfasound were especially memorable. Initially the main presenters at the station were Dr. John Moloney, Declan Copues, Pamela Wilson, Francis Jones and Ger Bradshaw. "Stereo 95 FM, Radio Limerick One" was how one of their main jingles used to go, with the station's catchphrase, "Closer to You", being the main thrust in the promotion of the station to a community that had been starved of local, non-Dublin-focussed radio.
Due to falling ratings the station rebranded itself as Limerick 95FM and moved to 100 O'Connell St. in the centre of Limerick city, around 1992. Changes in ownership occurred through the years as well. During this period, the station became among the first Irish radio stations to transmit via satellite - a service called "Ireland's Overnight Network", allowing other stations to air its generic overnight content in order to operate 24 hours a day without relying on automated playlists.
[edit] Irish Satellite Radio
Limerick 95FM also had a sister station for a time called Irish Satellite Radio broadcast via Astra 1B on frequency 11538 V. The station was on the VH1 TV channel transponder using the analogue transmission system known as Panda.
The Astra satellite allowed the station to broadcast to Europe and parts of North Africa. ISR was popular with listeners around the world including ex-pats who enjoyed listening to another Irish radio station, an alternative to RTÉ Radio 1, which incidentally also broadcast from the same transponder.
Both the UK and Germany in particular tuned into Astra 1 transmissions due to their respective countries subscription TV packages emanating from the bird. Thus Irish satellite radio picked up a large audience from subscribers to the Sky UK service or indeed people who had installed free-to-air satellite equipment. Several prominent satellite TV listings magazines including Satellite Times and What Satellite TV listed the stations program schedule every month.
The studio was upstairs in the former Limerick 95FM building on O'Connell Street. It featured a different schedule, programs and news than the Local variant but at times would simulcast with Limerick 95FM for special events.
[edit] Pirate operation
In controversial circumstances which would see court actions continuing in to the next century, the station lost its license in 1996. However, it continued broadcasting almost continuously as a pirate broadcaster, both on FM and satellite. Its satellite licens was removed [2] in 1999 by the Radio Authority in the UK (who had issued it) due to intervention by the then IRTC in Ireland; although its FM broadcasts stayed near continuous until the Comreg clamp-downs on pirate broadcasting in the early 2000s, and has continued rebroadcasting after continuous raids. It was the most raided station by Comreg for a number of years, often aggressively with one ending in cutting down the mast with no regard for health and safety.
During the pirate years Radio Limerick One continued to operate as it did when it was a licensed station. News bulletins were broadcast hourly by the newsroom staff such as Anne O' Grady and Aodhan Halligan with night time reports from UK commercial service IRN. Local obituaries were also read several times a day by the on-air presenter. RLO also had a dedicated sports team headed up by the then GAA PRO John Ryan and including Keith Fitzpatrick, Dominic Fitzgerald and many more. Local Gaelic Athletic Association matches were broadcast during season on Sundays using professional outside broadcast equipment where permitted. The station had a full schedule of programming from 7am-1am.
In the Morning, the breakfast show featured a mix of classic hits, news, weather and travel reports and some chat with presenters such as John Moloney, Sean Griffin and Eric Clarke.
This was followed in the afternoon with a lean towards Oldies/M.O.R/Country music often presented by Ger Bradshaw, formerly of Limerick 95fm, Darren Moloney and Fergus Hannan.
Drive-time and evenings featured a 60s/70s/80s music mix over the years including Francis Jones, Fintan Moloney and many others.
The night time hours of RLO typically featured chat shows. The "Late and Live" show was a phone in program made popular by Gerry Hannan. Uniquely the show had little or no telephone screening process thus meaning most anyone could get on the air. This led to some controversial incidents over the years and the show was infamous for its "anything goes" approach.
During overnight hours non-stop classic hits were played and in the latter years the "Late and Live" program would be repeated throughout the night.
In 2002, it applied for, was refused, and appealed to no effect a license to operate a medium wave service in the city of Limerick The license was won by a group chaired by Joe Harrington, a former RLO presenter and ironically never went on air.
During its period as a pirate, much use has been made of the Radio Data System to provide politically loaded messages to users with suitable equipment, ranging from "NO RLO NO VOTE" during a protest at the 2002 Irish General Election to "HELP RLO STOP BCI SLEEZE", a message of such length as to require scrolling. This only provoked more raids and court cases.
The studio somehow was never touched due to trickery from the in-house engineers. Offset satellite frequencies were used to link to the hill so they couldn't be scoped, graphed and presented in courts. As technology become more available the station was surrounded by an internet cafe, which linked the radio by internet protocol to the local area network. This was genius as the link was then transmitted to an intermediate hop (which used the dreaded capture frequencies) only meters away isolating the station wholly from broadcasting on illegally. It could now never be touched. Thus consequently the BCI hit the hill-sites harder. WI-FI now surrounds this type of technology.
It reverted back to its old name Radio Limerick One and those memorable jingles were once again refreshed in the minds of the people of Limerick. It was recently under the management on Gerry Hannan who also hosted a popular night time chat show. The studio was moved to his local shop.
After a Comreg raid on December 13, 2006, the station never returned. The engineers and 'community groups' are now busy working on other projects. Current owner Gerry Hannan announced he intended to go the legal route of IP broadcasting online. [3]. This involved broadcasting by web, anyone with a wireless router and broadband service could buy a WI-FI radio and tune in legally. However, the service was short lived and RLO has remained off air since.
Notable former presenters from the pirate incarnation of RLO to subsequently work on other radio stations include Francis Jones on Radio Kerry as well as John Moloney and Sean Buckley who are both now on Tipperary Mid west radio and Enda Caldwell now at 106.5 Riviera Radio in Monaco. Colm Mcgrath is in Cork and Padraig Gallagher on Newstalk. Throughout the years most of the Live95fm presenters and staff worked for RLO.
Other programs include comedy legend Tom O'Donnell (Dear Hearts and Gentle People), Fr. Cletus Noone (Noone at Night), Tony Browne (Local History show), Frank Carberry (The Politics Show, Darren Moloney (American and Irish country, Classic Love, Top 40 show), Fergus Hannon (Saturday Sportsbeat), Fintan Moloney (Solid Gold Sunday), Dale Clancy (Top 8 at 8), Eric Murphy (Pillow Talk) and Sean Buckley (Buckley's People).
[edit] RLO TV
Radio Limerick one owner Gerard Madden also operated a local TV station under the name RLO TV. The station was initially broadcast from the Sirius satellite commencing in 1998 and also transmitted in later years via Hotbird on the frequency 12.597 GHz.
Free satellite equipment was offered to pubs and establishments around the city and county to facilitate reception of Ireland's first digital television channel.
The satellite incarnation of the channel featured a schedule that was looped every few hours with pre-recorded programs presented by several staff from the radio station. The broadcast was uplinked from London, a staff member flew each day with a new tape to play every morning and flew home again.
Programs included the Sean Buckley fronted "Buckleys people" with regular chat style interviews featuring local dignitaries and "Dr. John's Diaries" presented by breakfast show host John Moloney.
Many other programs were featured on the schedule at this time including recorded coverage of Local Gaelic Athletic Association games often unseen on other channels, Irish music video showcases and other general entertainment fare all produced in house at the RLO studios.
After a brief period broadcasting from Hotbird, satellite transmissions ceased on the 1st January 1999.
Upon obtaining several licenses to deflect UK terrestrial TV stations to the county area of the region, the station began broadcasting on UHF Channel 51 from Woodcock Hill to Limerick city. This was linked directly to the main studio and live broadcasting could begin. Gerry Hannan's "Late & Live" radio programme was broadcast live on TV showing the radio studio. Provisions were being sought to set up equipment at prominent 'guests' private houses to broadcast live from, but this never came to light. Live production began on the second floor and the radio was suppressed on one channel to up-link to the hill-sites. There were two other transmission sites at Newcastlewest and Knockfierna intended for reception in the county.
Superimposing background images of limerick on green screens with high end technology began on the Gerry Hannan, Tom O'Donnell and History show. Lighting, sound, vision and transmission were all handled in-house. Staff were trained with high end digital editing suites and high resolution camera's for the time.
At night time Channel 5 was rebroadcast between RLO TV shows. Broadcasts were usually between 22:00 and 01:00 with the frequency reverting to Channel 5 straight after the local broadcast had ended.
During this period, a live element was introduced. Cameras were set up in the Radio Limerick one studio and joint TV/Radio simulcasts began. Programs that were featured in this live format included Gerry Hannan Late and Live, The Tom O' Donnell show, The History show and John Ryan's regular GAA special, broadcast both in and out of studio usually titled "Up for the final".
The station thrived while it was on air and featured adverts from local sponsors. After an ODTR raid in 2001 the radio and TV equipment were seized and the channel never returned.
Previous staff from RLO TV included Bridget O Grady, Keith Fitzpatrick, Mark Dempsey, Dale Clancy, Valerie Nolan, Dominic Fitzgerald, Colm McGrath, Eric Murphy, Enda Caldwell Darren Moloney, Anne O Grady, Fintan Moloney, Simon McGuire.
Gerry Hannan interview with limerick.com
Some Day My Time Will Come
Gerard Hannan In a full and forthright EXCLUSIVE interview with Limerick.com controversial author, journalist and broadcaster Gerard Hannan talks about his Limerick childhood, his brush with the international media, his popularity as a tamed Irish shock-jock and his globally famous row with Pulitzer prize-winning author of Angela's Ashes Frank McCourt.
Interview conducted by Jan Rice for Limerick.com
Dateline: June 8th. 2002
LIMERICK.COM: Thank you for agreeing to do this interview.
HANNAN: You're very welcome. Why should I turn down such an opportunity to communicate my thoughts and feelings?
LIMERICK.COM: You are best known internationally for your row with Frank McCourt and we will talk in detail about that in a little while but firstly will you tell us a little bit about who you are and where you come from?
HANNAN: Well, I was born in 1959 and raised in a place called Garryowen, which is a working class suburb of Limerick. I am the fifth son in a family of eight. My mother would say that my head was so big when I was born that she couldn't walk for six months after having me. My mother had five sons in a row and then three girls.I was in the middle, I think they really wanted a girl so the next baby after me was Mary. Our family was split in two groups of 4 and I got stuck in with the girls. But I have always had a better relationship with my sisters than with my brothers. I love them all but, I have to say, the girls are like my three guardian angels. I am lucky because they are so honest. They will tell me that I am either an idiot or a hero with everything I get involved with. They are the only people that can really influence me. I think women are far more intelligent than men; they have a keener sense of what's right and what's wrong. Men just throw their eyes up to God and hope that whatever the problem is; it will soon go away. Women will tackle the problem head on. So my sisters are important to me.that sounds a bit clinical.what they have to say is significant to me.
LIMERICK.COM: Did you have a happy childhood?
HANNAN: Absolutely. I really have no outstanding memories that would haunt me in any way whatsoever. Yes there were ups and downs like everybody else but as I get older I realise that what seemed important to me in my twenties has paled into insignificance in my early forties. What seemed like defining moments in my childhood was only important because I deemed them so. But as I get older I think more about what happened yesterday than what happened last year. Even bitter memories from my childhood have become somewhat sweet because I now realise that those moments have made me what I am and if I don't accept what those moments tell me about myself then I don't accept myself and nothing would be further from the truth. I totally accept myself so it follows that those moments are of no real consequence. I even feel awkward talking about them because it is giving them more importance than they actually deserve.
LIMERICK.COM: Can you give us an example?
HANNAN: Well I write about a defining moment from my childhood in TIS IN ME ASS when I was about six or seven years of age and my mother caught me playing with the girls. That, for one reason or another, was totally unacceptable to her so she put a dress on me and sent me out onto the street and at first I was mortified because my best friends were out there playing football while I was indoors playing 'house'. That was a very bitter memory for me as a teenager and in my early twenties but nowadays it think the episode was very funny. When I wrote about it I was writing with my tongue firmly in my cheek and was milking it a bit for laughs. I figure if I had wrote about it in my twenties I would have been milking it for sympathy.
LIMERICK.COM: So what you are saying is.?
HANNAN: I am saying that we are all better off leaving our luggage behind us and if we can't do that then we should look for something funny about the memory and that will help us to leave it behind. That's what I believe, it may sound like a 'cock and bull' story to others but that's what I believe God help me!
LIMERICK.COM: As I mentioned earlier you are best known internationally as Frank McCourt's protagonist but in Limerick you have a completely different image because of the popularity of your nightly radio talk show. Tell us a bit about that.
HANNAN: I keep hearing about this so-called 'international image' but I honestly don't think in my mind that there are any more than a handful of Limerick's ex-pats and a couple of student's of Irish literature who give any more than a flying damn about Gerry Hannan and his point of view on McCourt or any other subject for that matter..
LIMERICK.COM: You could be wrong.
HANNAN: Maybe.but I doubt it.
LIMERICK.COM: A random search of the internet came up with results where you were quoted in newspapers such as the New York Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, Sunday Times, C.N.N., '60 Minutes with Ed Bradley', BBC Radio and Television, The South Bank Show, German, French Japanese and Australian newspapers, magazines, radio and television so how then can you say that there is nobody out there who gives a damn?
HANNAN: Well that was then and this is now. That was an incredible period of my life and I learned a lot about how the media works. Journalists hunt in packs and they go through you for a short cut but then the whole thing dies and you become yesterdays news thanks be to God!
LIMERICK.COM: You are grateful for that?
HANNAN: Jesus yes. That was fun while it lasted but as this media attention went on and on I got really bored with it and eventually I stopped taking calls because everything I had to say was somehow twisted to suit the angle the journalist was coming from. The American journalists were always pro-McCourt and to them I was a two-headed monster from Limerick. The European media, with the exception of the Irish hacks, were very fair and balanced. Irish journalists saw me as an opportunist jumping on McCourt's success. The Europeans grasped the concept of two sides to every story.
LIMERICK.COM: Let's talk about your radio show for a moment.
HANNAN: Well I started broadcasting on local radio about twenty-five years ago, back in the pirate days; I immediately fell in love with the whole concept of radio. Back then I just went on and played music but as I got older I became more interested in talk radio. I loved what Howard Stern was doing in New York and I also knew there was some guy doing more or less the same thing in Dublin and it was proving extremely popular. Then, of course, there was Gerry Ryan on 2FM so I knew my day was coming. When I approached the local radio station in Limerick with the idea of a late night talk show they offered me a late night slot, the graveyard shift, on Sundays and I grabbed it. In a matter of months the show was running from Monday to Friday for three solid hours each night and it took off from there.
LIMERICK.COM: Why do you think your show is so popular?
HANNAN: I am still wondering about that. It is a complete mystery to me but I could hazard a guess at the answer. The popularity of the show has very little to do with me. The fact that so many people can have freedom of expression on the public airwaves is a very attractive proposition regardless of the presenter. The show furnishes ordinary people with a great opportunity for young and old alike to sing their songs, tell their stories, play their instruments, talk their talk, express their point of view, good, bad or indifferent, on any subject under the sun. It is radio with no rules. A sort of pot-pourri, if you like, of views, thoughts, talents, feelings and beliefs and I think you just can't miss with that kind of a formula. Nobody knows, including myself, what is going to happen next and that keeps the whole thing interesting.
LIMERICK.COM: Are you a firm believer in freedom of expression?
HANNAN: Absolutely. But I only discovered that about myself when I started doing this show. People have every right to say exactly what is going on in their minds with regard to any issue and they also have a right to be heard. Of course there are certain rules and the greatest of these is you don't get personal, hurt any individual or be disrespectful toward what they think or feel. After that, it is a sort of free for all. That's democracy at it's best and for as long as that freedom thrives in any society then that society can never be accused of being anything other than democratic.
LIMERICK.COM: Are there no exceptions to that rule?
HANNAN: None that I can think of off hand but I am open to contradiction. I don't suggest for a moment that I am always right that would be undemocratic wouldn't it?
LIMERICK.COM: You seem to have a great affinity for aged people; the national media once described you as 'a defender of the elderly' where does that come from?
HANNAN: I have no idea. I love to listen to elderly people talking to me on the radio show. They are always very interesting. The wisdom of years. They don't take life as seriously as, let's say, my generation would. They have seen it all and if you listen to what they have to say you can learn a lot. But, as for 'defender of the elderly', that's a load of nonsense. If anything they defend me!
LIMERICK.COM: You frequently become involved in charity work in Limerick and were a founder member of ALJEFF (An organisation set up with the purpose of building a treatment centre for young addicts), you raised substantial funds for a local youth band to buy new instruments and uniforms for it's thirty or more members, you also raised funds to pay for twenty or so mentally and physically handicapped young adults to travel to Lourdes and raised money to pay for an electronic wheelchair for a disabled young girl from the working-class suburb of Moyross - why?
HANNAN: The one great thing about the radio show is that it has an enormous audience and I think people are essentially good. When they hear of something worthwhile they respond immediately. I am fortunate to be in the position where I have their attention. It is these people that are the real unselfish ones here not me. I accept no praise, nor deserve any, for this work.
LIMERICK.COM: Are you religious?
HANNAN: I have no doubt God exists. I am very conscious of his presence in my life and would always aim to do my best to live my life to his satisfaction. I don't believe that I am achieving that but I intend to keep trying to the best of my ability. If that makes me religious then I am.
LIMERICK.COM: Why have you remained single?
HANNAN: No comment.
LIMERICK.COM: Let's talk about Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes and the famous international debate.
HANNAN: I wondered when you would get round to that!
LIMERICK.COM: When did you first hear of Angela's Ashes?
HANNAN: I met McCourt briefly one morning in autumn 1997 when he approached me at the radio station to interview him about his new book Angela's Ashes. I liked him at first and arranged to interview him later that same week but he never showed up. I didn't actually get round to reading the book for some weeks but my immediate response was lack of interest and by the time I got half way through the book it became a bit of a drag for me to finish but I soon did.
LIMERICK.COM: You didn't like it?
HANNAN: I didn't dislike it. Nobody can deny that the book was brilliantly written. McCourt got the childhood voice absolutely perfect. There was a certain innocence about the whole thing that was impressive. I was touched by specific parts of the book but not enough to warrant any great praise. That may sound vindictive coming from me but that is how I felt and I must be honest. I reread the book some months later because I figured that I was biased first time round and the same held true so maybe it deserves another chance. I have heard the book being described as a work of genius but I am hard pressed to find why.
LIMERICK.COM: At what point in time did you decide to publicly challenge the authenticity of Angela's Ashes?
HANNAN: There was no particular point in time. I started to discuss the book on the radio show and I was overwhelmed with the amount of calls I received complaining about the inaccuracies of Angela's Ashes. These calls were coming from Limerick's senior citizens who came from the lanes of Limerick in the McCourt era. People who walked the walk and knew more about the reality of life in that time than I ever could.
LIMERICK.COM: Are you not far too young at 40 to know or remember anything at all about life on the lanes of Limerick?
HANNAN: This is often said to me but I am a journalist and a student of social research with some education in Sociology. I deem myself an acceptable researcher and reporter of facts. I have often said you don't need to have spent time in Nazi Germany to write about it. There are plenty of witnesses willing to discuss their experiences and they can paint a pretty accurate picture of what life would have been like there and then.
LIMERICK.COM: Your first book ASHES was published within weeks of ANGELA'S ASHES. How did this come about?
HANNAN: ASHES was not my first book. I wrote a book called 'FROM CAMPFIRE TO CARNEGIE HALL' in 1994; that was a good seller in Limerick too. It was about Limerick's comedy duo TOM & PASCAL whom I loved as a child. I had been working on a book called 'Penance' which was set in Limerick and was about two childhood friends who grew up on the lanes. It was pretty much completed and I decided to change the name because I wanted it to be linked with ANGELA'S ASHES. The idea was to present another side to the story. There are always two sides to every story and this book was about people who came from the lanes but emerged from the experience with little or no bitterness.
LIMERICK.COM: Wasn't it a bit opportunistic to call the book ASHES?
HANNAN: A journalist once told me that if I were in any other business, other than writing, I would have been given an enterprise award for the idea. Others have said it was opportunistic; it depends on how you look at it. For me it meant instant recognition for my book. There are lots of books published in Limerick every year and calling my book ASHES gave it an edge that it otherwise would not have had.
LIMERICK.COM: Did it sell well?
HANNAN: I think we sold about 20,000 copies all over Ireland. It is out of print now and it had three print runs. I am very satisfied with the sales.
LIMERICK.COM: How did McCourt respond to the book?
HANNAN: I have no idea. He never publicly criticised it other than on one occasion he told the Sunday Times that he had no doubt that it would be a runaway best seller to the borders of Limerick. Being that that was all I was aiming for in the first place I was impressed by his intended insult. Maybe I'm small minded and a little too insular in my thinking but I never believed for a moment than anyone other than a Limerick person would have any interest whatsoever in my books.
LIMERICK.COM: Were you surprised by the amount of international media attention you received after the publication of ASHES?
HANNAN: Surprised and amused. But of course I became suspicious when the American journalists started to ring me and I asked a researcher for '60 Minutes' how she got my number and she told me that it was given to her by Frank McCourt. Here was the man calling me an opportunist and he was dishing my number out to anyone who cared to write a few paragraphs. I suppose I made good press for him so we both gained from the so-called 'war of words'.
LIMERICK.COM: Do you regret calling your book ASHES?
HANNAN: No. Why should I?
LIMERICK.COM: Well it's now branded the 'anti-McCourt' book.
HANNAN: Only by those who haven't read it and therefore know no better.
LIMERICK.COM: You once told the media that you could pinpoint 117 inaccuracies in ANGELA'S ASHES what were the main ones?
HANNAN: Well the top three would be the story about Willie Harold masturbating at the sight of his own sisters undressing. Harold had no sisters. The story about Frank's mother having sexual relations as rent payment with her first cousin Laman Griffin. She never actually lived with him. The story about Treasa Carmody having oral sex with Frank on her deathbed; she died a long time before Frank says she did. There are others, I don't believe Malachy Snr was actually Frank's father, the McCourt's were not as poor as Frank claimed, the list goes on and on. The book was vindictive towards Limerick and it's people. There were plenty of scurrilous lies about innocent people and a lot of facts about the McCourt family were conveniently omitted. It's a fairy tale disguised as fact.
LIMERICK.COM: Why did it vex you so much?
HANNAN: It just did. I am not a psychologist so I can't explain why. All I can tell you is that I felt very strongly about it. I am a passionate person by nature and I stand up for what I believe in. That's all.
LIMERICK.COM: Your controversial appearance on the Ireland's most popular talk show THE LATE LATE SHOW is still well remembered for its ferociousness. Do you regret the strength of your attack on Frank McCourt?
HANNAN: (Laughs).Not at all. Perhaps I would act differently nowadays. I don't feel quite as passionate about the subject these days. That was what I felt there and then and I acted accordingly. But I do feel that was really a one-to-one conversation with McCourt. He knew exactly where I was coming from, no one else did. He got the message loud and clear so my mission was accomplished. I am told he told a friend of his in New York that my actions reminded him of his own mother's behaviour in a New York theatre when she jumped up from the audience and called him a liar. The whole thing took him aback but I believe he knew exactly what I was saying. Other people's opinions on the matter really are of no consequence to me.
LIMERICK.COM: Were you really as angry as you appeared?
HANNAN: I suppose there was an element of 'acting' there too. But I wanted to get my point across and the best form of defence is attack they say. I wanted the moment to be memorable for McCourt and it was. McCourt was in Galway recently and he met a friend of mine from Limerick and told him that he had no ill will toward me because he felt the producers of the 'Late Late' were ambushing him. But I have to say there was no such prior discussion between the producers and myself. It may have been their agenda but it wasn't mine. I was finally given a chance to confront McCourt and I took it and that was my only motive. The producers assured me that McCourt knew full well that I was going to be in the audience and I don't see why they would lie about that.
LIMERICK.COM: Do you dislike McCourt as a person?
HANNAN: I don't know him well enough to have any kind of an informed opinion. But I do believe from people who do know him that he is not a likable fellow at all. I believe he is a most sarcastic and bitter man. But that's just going on second hand information.
LIMERICK.COM: Did you ever meet McCourt after the initial meeting in the radio station?
HANNAN: Just once in the Green Room after the 'Late Late' but it was only for a fleeting moment. He gave me a rather friendly smile while his wife was calling me a 'scum ball' from Limerick. He told her to hush-up and shook his head as he walked by. That was it.
LIMERICK.COM: And there has been no further contact?
HANNAN: People that I know to be personal friends of his have often made contact with me on different matters but there has been no direct contact nor do I expect there will ever be. I am sure I am no more than a very minor player in the life of Frank McCourt.
LIMERICK.COM: Let's talk about your second book TIS IN ME ASS.
HANNAN: Now, that for me was where the real fun began.
LIMERICK.COM: Why do you say that?
HANNAN: Well my three books, ASHES, TIS IN ME ASS and FROM BARDS TO BLACKGUARDS are all part of one trilogy but they were all part of a sort of work-in-progress until the final part was complete. I first called the trilogy 'The Penance Trilogy', then changed it to 'The Singland Trilogy' - writers prerogative, then it finally became what it is now, 'The Limerick Trilogy'. But TIS IN ME ASS was the most fun for me to write. I got great help from my brother Dominic who has a sort of photographic memory. I wrote about our childhood in Garryowen in the 1960's and 70's and I think it is a book that will be best appreciated in fifty years time when people wonder what life was like back then. I wanted it to be funny and I hope I achieved that.
LIMERICK.COM: So TIS IN ME ASS was a labour of love?
HANNAN: I love that cliché.
LIMERICK.COM: FROM BARDS TO BLACKGUARDS attempts to look at the history of Limerick storytelling right up to the writings of Frank McCourt. His presence is strong in your three books do you not fear being tagged 'obsessed' by Frank McCourt?
HANNAN: I've been called worse on a short walk.
LIMERICK.COM: Do you intend writing more books about McCourt?
HANNAN: (Laughs) I'm afraid the obsession has passed for the moment.
LIMERICK.COM: What are you working on now?
HANNAN: I have two books in draft form at the moment. I have been working for some time on a romantic novel called WHEN ANGELS WEEP and a children's book called SHAWN OISIN. Look out Maeve Binchy and J.K. Rowlings I'm coming to get you!
LIMERICK.COM: Thank you for taking the time to talk to us.
HANNAN: You're welcome.
Gerard Hannan In a full and forthright EXCLUSIVE interview with Limerick.com controversial author, journalist and broadcaster Gerard Hannan talks about his Limerick childhood, his brush with the international media, his popularity as a tamed Irish shock-jock and his globally famous row with Pulitzer prize-winning author of Angela's Ashes Frank McCourt.
Interview conducted by Jan Rice for Limerick.com
Dateline: June 8th. 2002
LIMERICK.COM: Thank you for agreeing to do this interview.
HANNAN: You're very welcome. Why should I turn down such an opportunity to communicate my thoughts and feelings?
LIMERICK.COM: You are best known internationally for your row with Frank McCourt and we will talk in detail about that in a little while but firstly will you tell us a little bit about who you are and where you come from?
HANNAN: Well, I was born in 1959 and raised in a place called Garryowen, which is a working class suburb of Limerick. I am the fifth son in a family of eight. My mother would say that my head was so big when I was born that she couldn't walk for six months after having me. My mother had five sons in a row and then three girls.I was in the middle, I think they really wanted a girl so the next baby after me was Mary. Our family was split in two groups of 4 and I got stuck in with the girls. But I have always had a better relationship with my sisters than with my brothers. I love them all but, I have to say, the girls are like my three guardian angels. I am lucky because they are so honest. They will tell me that I am either an idiot or a hero with everything I get involved with. They are the only people that can really influence me. I think women are far more intelligent than men; they have a keener sense of what's right and what's wrong. Men just throw their eyes up to God and hope that whatever the problem is; it will soon go away. Women will tackle the problem head on. So my sisters are important to me.that sounds a bit clinical.what they have to say is significant to me.
LIMERICK.COM: Did you have a happy childhood?
HANNAN: Absolutely. I really have no outstanding memories that would haunt me in any way whatsoever. Yes there were ups and downs like everybody else but as I get older I realise that what seemed important to me in my twenties has paled into insignificance in my early forties. What seemed like defining moments in my childhood was only important because I deemed them so. But as I get older I think more about what happened yesterday than what happened last year. Even bitter memories from my childhood have become somewhat sweet because I now realise that those moments have made me what I am and if I don't accept what those moments tell me about myself then I don't accept myself and nothing would be further from the truth. I totally accept myself so it follows that those moments are of no real consequence. I even feel awkward talking about them because it is giving them more importance than they actually deserve.
LIMERICK.COM: Can you give us an example?
HANNAN: Well I write about a defining moment from my childhood in TIS IN ME ASS when I was about six or seven years of age and my mother caught me playing with the girls. That, for one reason or another, was totally unacceptable to her so she put a dress on me and sent me out onto the street and at first I was mortified because my best friends were out there playing football while I was indoors playing 'house'. That was a very bitter memory for me as a teenager and in my early twenties but nowadays it think the episode was very funny. When I wrote about it I was writing with my tongue firmly in my cheek and was milking it a bit for laughs. I figure if I had wrote about it in my twenties I would have been milking it for sympathy.
LIMERICK.COM: So what you are saying is.?
HANNAN: I am saying that we are all better off leaving our luggage behind us and if we can't do that then we should look for something funny about the memory and that will help us to leave it behind. That's what I believe, it may sound like a 'cock and bull' story to others but that's what I believe God help me!
LIMERICK.COM: As I mentioned earlier you are best known internationally as Frank McCourt's protagonist but in Limerick you have a completely different image because of the popularity of your nightly radio talk show. Tell us a bit about that.
HANNAN: I keep hearing about this so-called 'international image' but I honestly don't think in my mind that there are any more than a handful of Limerick's ex-pats and a couple of student's of Irish literature who give any more than a flying damn about Gerry Hannan and his point of view on McCourt or any other subject for that matter..
LIMERICK.COM: You could be wrong.
HANNAN: Maybe.but I doubt it.
LIMERICK.COM: A random search of the internet came up with results where you were quoted in newspapers such as the New York Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, Sunday Times, C.N.N., '60 Minutes with Ed Bradley', BBC Radio and Television, The South Bank Show, German, French Japanese and Australian newspapers, magazines, radio and television so how then can you say that there is nobody out there who gives a damn?
HANNAN: Well that was then and this is now. That was an incredible period of my life and I learned a lot about how the media works. Journalists hunt in packs and they go through you for a short cut but then the whole thing dies and you become yesterdays news thanks be to God!
LIMERICK.COM: You are grateful for that?
HANNAN: Jesus yes. That was fun while it lasted but as this media attention went on and on I got really bored with it and eventually I stopped taking calls because everything I had to say was somehow twisted to suit the angle the journalist was coming from. The American journalists were always pro-McCourt and to them I was a two-headed monster from Limerick. The European media, with the exception of the Irish hacks, were very fair and balanced. Irish journalists saw me as an opportunist jumping on McCourt's success. The Europeans grasped the concept of two sides to every story.
LIMERICK.COM: Let's talk about your radio show for a moment.
HANNAN: Well I started broadcasting on local radio about twenty-five years ago, back in the pirate days; I immediately fell in love with the whole concept of radio. Back then I just went on and played music but as I got older I became more interested in talk radio. I loved what Howard Stern was doing in New York and I also knew there was some guy doing more or less the same thing in Dublin and it was proving extremely popular. Then, of course, there was Gerry Ryan on 2FM so I knew my day was coming. When I approached the local radio station in Limerick with the idea of a late night talk show they offered me a late night slot, the graveyard shift, on Sundays and I grabbed it. In a matter of months the show was running from Monday to Friday for three solid hours each night and it took off from there.
LIMERICK.COM: Why do you think your show is so popular?
HANNAN: I am still wondering about that. It is a complete mystery to me but I could hazard a guess at the answer. The popularity of the show has very little to do with me. The fact that so many people can have freedom of expression on the public airwaves is a very attractive proposition regardless of the presenter. The show furnishes ordinary people with a great opportunity for young and old alike to sing their songs, tell their stories, play their instruments, talk their talk, express their point of view, good, bad or indifferent, on any subject under the sun. It is radio with no rules. A sort of pot-pourri, if you like, of views, thoughts, talents, feelings and beliefs and I think you just can't miss with that kind of a formula. Nobody knows, including myself, what is going to happen next and that keeps the whole thing interesting.
LIMERICK.COM: Are you a firm believer in freedom of expression?
HANNAN: Absolutely. But I only discovered that about myself when I started doing this show. People have every right to say exactly what is going on in their minds with regard to any issue and they also have a right to be heard. Of course there are certain rules and the greatest of these is you don't get personal, hurt any individual or be disrespectful toward what they think or feel. After that, it is a sort of free for all. That's democracy at it's best and for as long as that freedom thrives in any society then that society can never be accused of being anything other than democratic.
LIMERICK.COM: Are there no exceptions to that rule?
HANNAN: None that I can think of off hand but I am open to contradiction. I don't suggest for a moment that I am always right that would be undemocratic wouldn't it?
LIMERICK.COM: You seem to have a great affinity for aged people; the national media once described you as 'a defender of the elderly' where does that come from?
HANNAN: I have no idea. I love to listen to elderly people talking to me on the radio show. They are always very interesting. The wisdom of years. They don't take life as seriously as, let's say, my generation would. They have seen it all and if you listen to what they have to say you can learn a lot. But, as for 'defender of the elderly', that's a load of nonsense. If anything they defend me!
LIMERICK.COM: You frequently become involved in charity work in Limerick and were a founder member of ALJEFF (An organisation set up with the purpose of building a treatment centre for young addicts), you raised substantial funds for a local youth band to buy new instruments and uniforms for it's thirty or more members, you also raised funds to pay for twenty or so mentally and physically handicapped young adults to travel to Lourdes and raised money to pay for an electronic wheelchair for a disabled young girl from the working-class suburb of Moyross - why?
HANNAN: The one great thing about the radio show is that it has an enormous audience and I think people are essentially good. When they hear of something worthwhile they respond immediately. I am fortunate to be in the position where I have their attention. It is these people that are the real unselfish ones here not me. I accept no praise, nor deserve any, for this work.
LIMERICK.COM: Are you religious?
HANNAN: I have no doubt God exists. I am very conscious of his presence in my life and would always aim to do my best to live my life to his satisfaction. I don't believe that I am achieving that but I intend to keep trying to the best of my ability. If that makes me religious then I am.
LIMERICK.COM: Why have you remained single?
HANNAN: No comment.
LIMERICK.COM: Let's talk about Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes and the famous international debate.
HANNAN: I wondered when you would get round to that!
LIMERICK.COM: When did you first hear of Angela's Ashes?
HANNAN: I met McCourt briefly one morning in autumn 1997 when he approached me at the radio station to interview him about his new book Angela's Ashes. I liked him at first and arranged to interview him later that same week but he never showed up. I didn't actually get round to reading the book for some weeks but my immediate response was lack of interest and by the time I got half way through the book it became a bit of a drag for me to finish but I soon did.
LIMERICK.COM: You didn't like it?
HANNAN: I didn't dislike it. Nobody can deny that the book was brilliantly written. McCourt got the childhood voice absolutely perfect. There was a certain innocence about the whole thing that was impressive. I was touched by specific parts of the book but not enough to warrant any great praise. That may sound vindictive coming from me but that is how I felt and I must be honest. I reread the book some months later because I figured that I was biased first time round and the same held true so maybe it deserves another chance. I have heard the book being described as a work of genius but I am hard pressed to find why.
LIMERICK.COM: At what point in time did you decide to publicly challenge the authenticity of Angela's Ashes?
HANNAN: There was no particular point in time. I started to discuss the book on the radio show and I was overwhelmed with the amount of calls I received complaining about the inaccuracies of Angela's Ashes. These calls were coming from Limerick's senior citizens who came from the lanes of Limerick in the McCourt era. People who walked the walk and knew more about the reality of life in that time than I ever could.
LIMERICK.COM: Are you not far too young at 40 to know or remember anything at all about life on the lanes of Limerick?
HANNAN: This is often said to me but I am a journalist and a student of social research with some education in Sociology. I deem myself an acceptable researcher and reporter of facts. I have often said you don't need to have spent time in Nazi Germany to write about it. There are plenty of witnesses willing to discuss their experiences and they can paint a pretty accurate picture of what life would have been like there and then.
LIMERICK.COM: Your first book ASHES was published within weeks of ANGELA'S ASHES. How did this come about?
HANNAN: ASHES was not my first book. I wrote a book called 'FROM CAMPFIRE TO CARNEGIE HALL' in 1994; that was a good seller in Limerick too. It was about Limerick's comedy duo TOM & PASCAL whom I loved as a child. I had been working on a book called 'Penance' which was set in Limerick and was about two childhood friends who grew up on the lanes. It was pretty much completed and I decided to change the name because I wanted it to be linked with ANGELA'S ASHES. The idea was to present another side to the story. There are always two sides to every story and this book was about people who came from the lanes but emerged from the experience with little or no bitterness.
LIMERICK.COM: Wasn't it a bit opportunistic to call the book ASHES?
HANNAN: A journalist once told me that if I were in any other business, other than writing, I would have been given an enterprise award for the idea. Others have said it was opportunistic; it depends on how you look at it. For me it meant instant recognition for my book. There are lots of books published in Limerick every year and calling my book ASHES gave it an edge that it otherwise would not have had.
LIMERICK.COM: Did it sell well?
HANNAN: I think we sold about 20,000 copies all over Ireland. It is out of print now and it had three print runs. I am very satisfied with the sales.
LIMERICK.COM: How did McCourt respond to the book?
HANNAN: I have no idea. He never publicly criticised it other than on one occasion he told the Sunday Times that he had no doubt that it would be a runaway best seller to the borders of Limerick. Being that that was all I was aiming for in the first place I was impressed by his intended insult. Maybe I'm small minded and a little too insular in my thinking but I never believed for a moment than anyone other than a Limerick person would have any interest whatsoever in my books.
LIMERICK.COM: Were you surprised by the amount of international media attention you received after the publication of ASHES?
HANNAN: Surprised and amused. But of course I became suspicious when the American journalists started to ring me and I asked a researcher for '60 Minutes' how she got my number and she told me that it was given to her by Frank McCourt. Here was the man calling me an opportunist and he was dishing my number out to anyone who cared to write a few paragraphs. I suppose I made good press for him so we both gained from the so-called 'war of words'.
LIMERICK.COM: Do you regret calling your book ASHES?
HANNAN: No. Why should I?
LIMERICK.COM: Well it's now branded the 'anti-McCourt' book.
HANNAN: Only by those who haven't read it and therefore know no better.
LIMERICK.COM: You once told the media that you could pinpoint 117 inaccuracies in ANGELA'S ASHES what were the main ones?
HANNAN: Well the top three would be the story about Willie Harold masturbating at the sight of his own sisters undressing. Harold had no sisters. The story about Frank's mother having sexual relations as rent payment with her first cousin Laman Griffin. She never actually lived with him. The story about Treasa Carmody having oral sex with Frank on her deathbed; she died a long time before Frank says she did. There are others, I don't believe Malachy Snr was actually Frank's father, the McCourt's were not as poor as Frank claimed, the list goes on and on. The book was vindictive towards Limerick and it's people. There were plenty of scurrilous lies about innocent people and a lot of facts about the McCourt family were conveniently omitted. It's a fairy tale disguised as fact.
LIMERICK.COM: Why did it vex you so much?
HANNAN: It just did. I am not a psychologist so I can't explain why. All I can tell you is that I felt very strongly about it. I am a passionate person by nature and I stand up for what I believe in. That's all.
LIMERICK.COM: Your controversial appearance on the Ireland's most popular talk show THE LATE LATE SHOW is still well remembered for its ferociousness. Do you regret the strength of your attack on Frank McCourt?
HANNAN: (Laughs).Not at all. Perhaps I would act differently nowadays. I don't feel quite as passionate about the subject these days. That was what I felt there and then and I acted accordingly. But I do feel that was really a one-to-one conversation with McCourt. He knew exactly where I was coming from, no one else did. He got the message loud and clear so my mission was accomplished. I am told he told a friend of his in New York that my actions reminded him of his own mother's behaviour in a New York theatre when she jumped up from the audience and called him a liar. The whole thing took him aback but I believe he knew exactly what I was saying. Other people's opinions on the matter really are of no consequence to me.
LIMERICK.COM: Were you really as angry as you appeared?
HANNAN: I suppose there was an element of 'acting' there too. But I wanted to get my point across and the best form of defence is attack they say. I wanted the moment to be memorable for McCourt and it was. McCourt was in Galway recently and he met a friend of mine from Limerick and told him that he had no ill will toward me because he felt the producers of the 'Late Late' were ambushing him. But I have to say there was no such prior discussion between the producers and myself. It may have been their agenda but it wasn't mine. I was finally given a chance to confront McCourt and I took it and that was my only motive. The producers assured me that McCourt knew full well that I was going to be in the audience and I don't see why they would lie about that.
LIMERICK.COM: Do you dislike McCourt as a person?
HANNAN: I don't know him well enough to have any kind of an informed opinion. But I do believe from people who do know him that he is not a likable fellow at all. I believe he is a most sarcastic and bitter man. But that's just going on second hand information.
LIMERICK.COM: Did you ever meet McCourt after the initial meeting in the radio station?
HANNAN: Just once in the Green Room after the 'Late Late' but it was only for a fleeting moment. He gave me a rather friendly smile while his wife was calling me a 'scum ball' from Limerick. He told her to hush-up and shook his head as he walked by. That was it.
LIMERICK.COM: And there has been no further contact?
HANNAN: People that I know to be personal friends of his have often made contact with me on different matters but there has been no direct contact nor do I expect there will ever be. I am sure I am no more than a very minor player in the life of Frank McCourt.
LIMERICK.COM: Let's talk about your second book TIS IN ME ASS.
HANNAN: Now, that for me was where the real fun began.
LIMERICK.COM: Why do you say that?
HANNAN: Well my three books, ASHES, TIS IN ME ASS and FROM BARDS TO BLACKGUARDS are all part of one trilogy but they were all part of a sort of work-in-progress until the final part was complete. I first called the trilogy 'The Penance Trilogy', then changed it to 'The Singland Trilogy' - writers prerogative, then it finally became what it is now, 'The Limerick Trilogy'. But TIS IN ME ASS was the most fun for me to write. I got great help from my brother Dominic who has a sort of photographic memory. I wrote about our childhood in Garryowen in the 1960's and 70's and I think it is a book that will be best appreciated in fifty years time when people wonder what life was like back then. I wanted it to be funny and I hope I achieved that.
LIMERICK.COM: So TIS IN ME ASS was a labour of love?
HANNAN: I love that cliché.
LIMERICK.COM: FROM BARDS TO BLACKGUARDS attempts to look at the history of Limerick storytelling right up to the writings of Frank McCourt. His presence is strong in your three books do you not fear being tagged 'obsessed' by Frank McCourt?
HANNAN: I've been called worse on a short walk.
LIMERICK.COM: Do you intend writing more books about McCourt?
HANNAN: (Laughs) I'm afraid the obsession has passed for the moment.
LIMERICK.COM: What are you working on now?
HANNAN: I have two books in draft form at the moment. I have been working for some time on a romantic novel called WHEN ANGELS WEEP and a children's book called SHAWN OISIN. Look out Maeve Binchy and J.K. Rowlings I'm coming to get you!
LIMERICK.COM: Thank you for taking the time to talk to us.
HANNAN: You're welcome.
Gerry Hannan in court again
'Ku Klux Klan' jibe costs station €20,000
Published Date:
19 December 2007
By David Hurley
A BALLYNEETY man who was described as a "Ku Klux Klan type of character" on a pirate radio station was this Wednesday awarded damages of €20,000 after he successfully sued controversial broadcaster Gerry Hannan and the owner of the radio station, Gerard Madden.
Desmond Hayes of Robin Hill, Ballyneety sued both Mr Hannan and Mr Madden for libel following a broadcast on Radio Limerick One in March 2003.
At Limerick Circuit Court Judge Michael White was told the offending comments were broadcast during the Late and Live chat show on the evening of March 27, 2003.
In his evidence Mr Hayes, who is a former jockey, said he received a number of phone calls following the broadcast and he said he had stopped socialising since. "I felt very bad and I stopped going out, it was referred to everywhere I went," he said.
In his evidence Gerry Hannan alleged there had been an altercation between himself and Mr Hayes at his bookshop on William Street in the days before the broadcast. He claimed Mr Hayes was aggressive towards him because he had been banned from Radio Limerick One.
Following a five-hour hearing Judge White said he was satisfied Mr Hayes have been defamed by the comments contained in the broadcast.
The judge said he believed there were a number of people who would have thought less of Mr Hayes having heard the broadcast and he said in his view the damages amounted to €20,000.
He also ordered that the costs of Mr Hayes should be paid by Gerry Hannan and Gerard Madden.
Published Date:
19 December 2007
By David Hurley
A BALLYNEETY man who was described as a "Ku Klux Klan type of character" on a pirate radio station was this Wednesday awarded damages of €20,000 after he successfully sued controversial broadcaster Gerry Hannan and the owner of the radio station, Gerard Madden.
Desmond Hayes of Robin Hill, Ballyneety sued both Mr Hannan and Mr Madden for libel following a broadcast on Radio Limerick One in March 2003.
At Limerick Circuit Court Judge Michael White was told the offending comments were broadcast during the Late and Live chat show on the evening of March 27, 2003.
In his evidence Mr Hayes, who is a former jockey, said he received a number of phone calls following the broadcast and he said he had stopped socialising since. "I felt very bad and I stopped going out, it was referred to everywhere I went," he said.
In his evidence Gerry Hannan alleged there had been an altercation between himself and Mr Hayes at his bookshop on William Street in the days before the broadcast. He claimed Mr Hayes was aggressive towards him because he had been banned from Radio Limerick One.
Following a five-hour hearing Judge White said he was satisfied Mr Hayes have been defamed by the comments contained in the broadcast.
The judge said he believed there were a number of people who would have thought less of Mr Hayes having heard the broadcast and he said in his view the damages amounted to €20,000.
He also ordered that the costs of Mr Hayes should be paid by Gerry Hannan and Gerard Madden.
Hannan the litter bug
Hannan exposed as ‘litter lout’
Limerick radio supremo Gerry Hannan has been exposed by the city council as one of the people convicted of littering in the city. Hannan, who both runs and broadcasts on local unlicensed station Radio Limerick One, is one of 128 people ‘named and shamed’ in a full page advertisement in this weekend’s Limerick Leader newspaper. He was fined €300 for throwing a cigarette butt on the pavement outside Browser’s bookstore, which he also runs. Unfortunately for Mr. Hannan, a litter inspector just happened to be passing at that exact time. Hannan told the Limerick Leader newspaper ‘it was the most expensive cigarette I ever smoked’. Also included in the list were city pubs the Old Quarter and Nevada Smiths.
Hannan is not a stranger to the limelight, in fact he seems to welcome controversy. He is one of Frank McCourt’s fiercest critics, claiming that McCourt’s book Angela’s Ashes is full of lies about Limerick and it’s people. He once challenged McCourt about his book on the Late Late Show.
Hannan runs Radio Limerick One, the station once headed by Ger Madden which lost it’s local radio license in 1996 but has continued unlicensed ever since. He also presents a nightly chat show on the station which is very popular, especially amongst the elderly. He was once prosecuted and fined IR£2000 for branding a named person ‘Little Hitler’ live on air. After this he was off air for a while before making a return and finally taking the running of the station over from Mr. Madden. RLO have recently lodged an expression of interest with the BCI in a bid to legitimise the station.
Limerick radio supremo Gerry Hannan has been exposed by the city council as one of the people convicted of littering in the city. Hannan, who both runs and broadcasts on local unlicensed station Radio Limerick One, is one of 128 people ‘named and shamed’ in a full page advertisement in this weekend’s Limerick Leader newspaper. He was fined €300 for throwing a cigarette butt on the pavement outside Browser’s bookstore, which he also runs. Unfortunately for Mr. Hannan, a litter inspector just happened to be passing at that exact time. Hannan told the Limerick Leader newspaper ‘it was the most expensive cigarette I ever smoked’. Also included in the list were city pubs the Old Quarter and Nevada Smiths.
Hannan is not a stranger to the limelight, in fact he seems to welcome controversy. He is one of Frank McCourt’s fiercest critics, claiming that McCourt’s book Angela’s Ashes is full of lies about Limerick and it’s people. He once challenged McCourt about his book on the Late Late Show.
Hannan runs Radio Limerick One, the station once headed by Ger Madden which lost it’s local radio license in 1996 but has continued unlicensed ever since. He also presents a nightly chat show on the station which is very popular, especially amongst the elderly. He was once prosecuted and fined IR£2000 for branding a named person ‘Little Hitler’ live on air. After this he was off air for a while before making a return and finally taking the running of the station over from Mr. Madden. RLO have recently lodged an expression of interest with the BCI in a bid to legitimise the station.
"Gerry Hannan on bebo"
Gerry Hannan
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"The eyes of truth are always upon you!"
38 weeks ago | me too! | Reply
Gerry Hannan
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Films
Once Upon A Time In America, Magnolia, Death In Venice, Amadeus And The List Continues......
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Not into Sports at all. Eccept maybe looking at lovely Rugby Jocks.
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Somebody who shares same interests as me.
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Gerry Hannan on wikipedia
Gerry Hannan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 | This article is an orphan, as few or no other articles link to it. Please introduce links to this page from other articles related to it. (September 2006) |
Gerry Hannon (born June 2, 1959) is a Limerick-based broadcaster and author. Best known for being a complete plonker beyond Limerick for a ferocious attack on fellow Limerick author, Frank McCourt, on the Late Late Show. Hannan claimed McCourt's Angela's Ashes was riddled with no less than 117 inaccuracies. In response to Frank McCourts book's Angela's Ashes and 'Tis he wrote Ashes and Tis up me ass.[1]
Radio Limerick One which is popular among the over 50s. Hannan won just 65 first preferences (1.58% of total) in a failed bid for Limerick City Council in 1999.
His main campaign issue in the European Elections is reform of the airwave regulator Broadcasting Commission of Ireland, with whom his radio station has been battling since its licence was withdrawn seven years ago. His other campaign priority is to improve Limerick's public image.
source http://www.rte.ie/news/elections2004/profiles/hannang.html
He is manager/broadcaster on Radio Limerick One http://www.radiolimerickone.com/
Watch Gerry in action
This is a link of Gerry Hannan on the Late Late show. Frank McCourts wife correctly claims that paedophile Frank Hamilton is the real author of "Gerrys book" Ashes.
Watch the video by clicking the link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-3WoAHV4gY
Watch the video by clicking the link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-3WoAHV4gY
Gerry Hannan is a close associate of paedophile Frank Hamilton
Journalist jailed after
sex assault on schoolgirl
by Tomás Mac Ruairi
A PROMINENT journalist who sexually assaulted a teenage schoolgirl in an hotel bedroom in 1994 and 1995 has been jailed for seven years by Judge Cyril Kelly at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Frank Hamilton, who was editor of the now closed Limerick Weekly Echo and a former senior press officer with Shannon Development, was given two consecutive sentences of three-and-a-half years by Judge Kelly.
The court heard that gardaí and customs officers found 69 child and bestial pornographic videos in a raid on a Limerick premises where they encountered Hamilton. He made two full statements of admission of his role in sexual activities with schoolgirls.
Hamilton, formerly of Shanaboolly Avenue, Ballynanty, Limerick, pleaded guilty in March to sexually assaulting one girl, now aged 16, on two occasions on unknown dates between July 10 and November 30, 1994, and January 1 and July 30, 1995, at Jurys Inn, Christchurch, in Dublin.
Detective Garda Gillian Ryan told Judge Kelly that Hamilton said he liked young girls with big breasts.
Judge Kelly said there was nothing in the probation or psychotherapy reports before the court which indicated Hamilton had anything but sexual fantasies about young girls. "In my view, he will pose a continuing threat to girls of this age," he said.
Judge Kelly added: "The fact that the offences as shown by the evidence were premeditated, planned and arranged and the hotel paid for, and that he should have known she was under age from the first offence makes these two distinct offences, so that the sentences must be consecutive".
Det Gda Ryan told prosecuting counsel Mary Ellen Ring BL that Hamilton received the pornographic videos at the Limerick address under an alias. The man whose name was used was unaware of the fact.
The name and address had become known to gardaí in an investigation and a search warrant had been issued to allow a search of the premises.
Det Gda Ryan agreed with defence counsel Michael McDowell SC (with Luigi Rea BL) that the girl in the charges to which Hamilton pleaded guilty was "a willing participant", and that the "pimp" who procured her was present in the bedroom during the assaults. She also agreed with Mr McDowell that Hamilton had helped gardaí identify the "pimp" who was now before the court in relation to this matter. The girl had refused to co-operate in the preparation of a victim impact report.
Mr McDowell handed in copies of what he claimed were misleading press reports with information that had not come into the public domain. Since he pleaded guilty in March, Hamilton had been viciously attacked twice, his home had its windows shattered and he had to move house three times
Mr McDowell claimed "a careful feed to the media of information" was carried on with the prostitution element kept out. The object appeared to be to reduce Hamilton in the public eye to the level of vermin.
The papers concerned kept claiming the girl involved was 12 years old. Whoever leaked the information gave the media one view of the case which led people to believe he took a young girl to an hotel and then viciously sexually assaulted her. That was an unbalanced view of the facts.
Mr McDowell said the fact that the girl was not an unwilling participant, but had been seduced into an evil form of child prostitution by another man, didn't excuse Hamilton's offending. He had become the victim of his own sexual appetites but the court should have the full facts behind the stark charge of sexual assault.
Det Gda Ryan, of the Domestic and Sexual Assault Unit of the Garda National Bureau of Crime Investigation, told Ms Ring the sexual assaults took the form of Hamilton fondling the girl's naked body, kissing her vaginal area and having her perform oral sex on him. She was aged 14-15 years at the time.
The girl revealed that another man before the court had befriended her when she was aged 10-11 years and had "groomed" her for child prostitution. He would bring her under an alias to the hotel to meet Hamilton who would pay him £40-£50 after each session.
Det Gda Ryan said Hamilton made contact originally with this man and the girl through advertisements in Hot Press and In Dublin.
Hamilton made two voluntary statements and revealed his marriage had collapsed after his wife found pornographic material in the house.
Det Gda Ryan agreed with Mr McDowell the girl refused point blank to discuss "sexual assaults" and became very angry when the subject was mentioned to her. She would not co-operate at all with a victim impact report.
Det Gda Ryan agreed also in reply to Judge Kelly that the girl allowed herself be photographed in lieu of money she borrowed from the "pimp" and owed him. She and the other girls willingly engaged in sexual activities with this man and became involved in child prostitution.
A third man who had been prosecuted arising out the same investigation, had been fined £3,500 in the District Court. Det Gda Ryan was unable to tell Judge Kelly if the State was appealing this sentence.
Pressed by Mr McDowell if she would agree the girl was "sexually mature" and "had a mind of her own", Det Gda Ryan replied: "She was willing in so far as she started all this when she was 11 or 12 years old and was not working under compulsion".
The court heard Hamilton had no previous convictions and was unemployed but had worked as a journalist in the Limerick and Clare areas. Hamilton was married but separated and had two, now adult, children.
The court had received glowing written testimonials from friends which tended to display Hamilton in another light.
Judge Kelly said the defence had complained that Hamilton had been reduced by media reports to the level of vermin in the public eye. It was right that the public be concerned about deviant behaviour in relation to children.
Judge Kelly refused leave to appeal severity of sentence.
This incident took place in an Internet cafe/bar. The property belongs to Gerry Hannan. The case is ongoing.
Daily Mirror rape story “grossly exaggerated” say investigators
A front-page story carried in this morning’s Irish Daily Mirror is grossly exaggerated, sources close to Live 95 FM have said.
According to the newspaper, a fifteen-year-old boy was followed into the toilets of an internet cafe on William Street and violently raped by a man of Eastern European extraction.
The local radio station however reports that not only did the paper get the boy’s age wrong, but also the fact that there was no claim of violence involved in the indecent attack, which is understood to have taken place last Monday.
A man in his 30s was taken in for questioning at Henry Street Garda Station, who claims that the encounter was mutually consentual and was not rape.
The man is also Irish and not Eastern European.
Live 95 FM story can be found here.
Criticism of elements of the national media are also carried in the City edition of this Weekend’s big Leade, which Gardai have described as unhelpful.
The paper also reports that while the attack happened at the Filmdrome Internet Cafe on William street, they are certain it’s proprietor had no connection with the incident.
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