Lawlor's life and death on the air

I t was radio and the Tribunal re-enactments that gave wings to Liam Lawlor, introduced us to the twists and turns of his mind, that absolutely dazzling narcissism that maybe, in the end, blinded some to the fact that here was a real human being. Ironically enough, it was radio this week that put him back into human form, brought his family, agonised and angry, into the picture and it was there too, on Today With Pat Kenny (RTÉ Radio 1, Monday) that Senator Mary O'Rourke, in sympathising with his wife, said "She'll be on the lonely road now, the road of widowhood. He was her guy, her man".

There was complete outrage at the Sunday Independent's reckless rush to judgment on Lawlor and the circumstances of his death. There were also some mad, bad and sad moments in the radio coverage of the issue.

Joe Taylor, plugging his forthcoming book on the tribunals on the Marian Finucane show (Sunday RTÉ Radio 1), was a new low for crassness. When Paul Cullen of The Irish Times finished his summation of Liam Lawlor on the This Week (Sunday RTÉ Radio 1) programme, Gerald Barry sounded none too pleased, coming, as he probably does, from the speak-no-ill-of-the-dead tradition we used to subscribe to.

On Monday on Liveline (RTÉ Radio 1), Joe Duffy juggled calls from Liam Lawlor's sister-in-law, Aileen Gilsen, and from Michael Denieffe, managing editor of Independent Newspapers, who phoned to address "the deep distress of the family and of the wide range of callers who have rung in". It emerged during that conversation that he hadn't yet been able to reach the editor of the Sunday Independent to discuss the matter.

From Gilsen too came very intimate stuff about how Liam Lawlor's wife "had been dreading the weekend, because Liam was going to be away", and how she and their brother and a friend went to her sister to break the news. As she spoke to Joe, a mobile phone rang twice and it was difficult not to wonder whether it wasn't a family member telling her to be quiet.

"Did anyone try and contact any member of the extended Lawlor family?" Joe asked Michael Denieffe. "Aileen is mother of Glenda who is in the Sunday Indo every Sunday nearly". At times, it was just as raw as an awful family bust up.

Gerry Ryan (The Gerry Ryan Show, RTÉ 2, Monday) had a long chat with Dave O'Connell, editor of the Westmeath Independent, who was previously a journalist with The Star. Afterwards, Gerry pondered aloud whether, if he had been the editor would he have run with the hooker headline for the Liam Lawlor story, answering, "Yes, I would."

Vincent Browne (Tonight with Vincent Browne, RTÉ Radio 1, Monday) was invited to consider whether he would have published the story if it had been known to be absolutely true, and he said he hoped that he wouldn't. Again the Joe Taylor/ Malcolm Douglas reconstructions were played. After the second one, Vincent commented, "I remember at the time thinking all that stuff was very funny but it doesn't seem funny at all tonight. It seems sad really." He reminisced about meeting Hazel Lawlor in the mid-1970s and what a very good-looking woman she was, an impressive woman. His guest, Fianna Fáil TD Sean Ardagh, went on about how Liam and Hazel "loved each other in so many different ways, it may not be apparent but it's that that builds up over 30 or 35 years... Hazel had it for Liam and Liam had it for Hazel." And it was a race for time to know if he would shut up before we threw up.

A question from a listener queried whether Vincent would have resigned if he had been editor of the Sunday Independent. While not being able to think of himself as editor of that paper, Vincent said he hoped "he would have the brass neck not to resign." He said too that none of this mattered, because the Ferns report was coming out this week and Liam Lawlor would be forgotten. He ended the programme with some of Puccini's Tosca. He didn't dedicate it to the memory of Liam Lawlor the way he sometimes dedicates the classical pieces to the memory of those he cared about who have just died. And that was a sobering reality check.

By Monday morning, Michael McDowell was on Morning Ireland (RTÉ Radio 1) like a cat in crème fraiche, the future Press Complaints Council safely under a paw.