Mr Ryan died unexpectedly from cardiac arrhythmia in 2010 and this year marks the 15th anniversary of his passing.
“I was actually at home that day. I don’t know if I was skipping College on purpose or what I was doing, but I was at home with my brother,” daughter Lottie Ryan told host Patrick Kielty.
“He didn’t go on air that morning and I was listening and I tried to ring him, and he would never not answer the phone to me, and he didn’t answer the phone.
“So I kind of thought, oh, maybe he’s not well. And I left it for about 20 minutes, and when he didn’t call me back, I went to call him again, and I was like, that’s really weird that he wouldn’t answer a second time.
“So I started texting him, and wasn’t getting anything. And then I think a couple of hours later, maybe around midday, the doorbell rang. And I think a lot of people say this when they have somebody really close to them that’s passed away.
“There’s something in you that just knows something’s happened. You just, I don’t know what it is, but I just knew something. And then I walked downstairs, and our GP was at the front door, and I opened the door, and I just instantly, I was like, Where is he?
“You know, obviously it took me a while to process. I thought maybe he was in hospital where I knew he was under a lot of stress, and I thought maybe he had just had a heart attack. But obviously it was worse than that, but something in you just knows. I mean so many people who lose someone, the pain and the intensity of that is something so hard.”
Ms Ryan said following his death and because Mr Ryan had become a public figure the family dealt with their grief in the public eye which “prolonged the process”.
“I feel we were kind of locked up in the house for quite a while, like you couldn’t really go out for a walk to get some fresh air, or you kind of felt like everyone was staring at you all the time and expecting you to be crying constantly,” she said.
“So, you know, one of the big things with grief is the first morning you wake up and they’re not the first thing on your mind you feel guilty about. So it kind of felt like that constantly. Was like people were watching you, waiting to see you get upset. And that’s really difficult. So it prolonged the process, I think, and I think it’s probably deeply affected all of us, but we are a really tight knit family.
“I think the eldest in every family kind of assumes that pseudo mother role, and we’ve kind of banded together, and I definitely was, and still am, really overprotective of them all.
“My little sister Bab’s was only eight years old at the time, you know, and there’s people rummaging through the bins at the side of the house trying to find something for a story.”
Ms Ryan said her reaction to learning her father had taken cocaine the night he died was the “same reaction then that it is now”.
“It didn’t matter then and it doesn’t matter now to me. And that’s not me excusing any bad behaviour. That’s me saying it’s my dad, like my dad is gone. I don’t know what you’re looking for. It’s, it’s pretty black and white. I can’t get them back. And that’s kind of all that matters,” she said.
“I’d like people to remember him as somebody who deeply cared about sharing people’s stories and deeply cared about people like that’s what mattered to him. He loved learning about people’s stories and genuinely really cared, and that he was the most incredible dad, like he was a family man, and I think he should be remembered for that and for the good and, you know, all the wonderful things he did.”
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