‘Have ya any answers?’ – looking back at some of the most memorable moments from Joe Duffy’s Liveline

Duffy began presenting the programme in 1999, taking over from Marian Finucane. And for close to 30 years he has been lending an ear as people around the country “talk to Joe” or tell him loudly that “it’s a disgrace, Joe”.

While debate rumbles on over who will be his successor, here we look back at some – but not all – of his memorable guests and moments from the show, as well as some of the remarkable stories that he has told in these years.

Lifesaving radio

Emmy-winning Prime Suspect screenwriter Frank Deasy, and a friend of Duffy, spoke to the broadcaster about the importance of organ donation as he waited for a liver transplant in 2009.

Joe Duffy to leave RTÉ after 37 years with the national broadcaster

Just days after appearing on the radio programme Deasy died on the operating table after being called to undergo an emergency liver transplant operation.

His interview resulted in an unprecedented surge in organ donor card requests – over 15,000 individual requests in just one week. Undoubtedly this saved many lives.

‘Have ya any answers?’

With the national broadcaster facing criticism and Oireachtas committees in the summer of 2023, Duffy weighed in on Liveline when details were revealed around RTÉ barter accounts.

When it was revealed RTÉ had spent nearly €5,000 on 200 pairs of Havaianas flip flops for a 2022 summer party Duffy remarked “Have ya any answers?” would have been a more apt name for the footwear, adding they could have saved money by shopping at Penneys.

“Now in Penneys on Mary Street – one of my favourite shops – in Penneys, I saw flip flops, the same flip flops as a flip flop,” he said. “A flip flop is a piece of rubber that goes on your foot and then there’s a little piece of plastic and that goes between your ‘this little piggy’.”

Something blue?

During Covid the TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People was phenomenally successful. But not everyone approved of the series.

There were reports that watching this series would lead to unprecedented levels of “fornicating”.

An elderly woman called Mary told Joe Duffy: “It was like something you would expect to see in a porno movie, it certainly wasn’t for family viewing.” The broadcaster responded: “And what would you see in a porno movie, Mary?”

Reuniting families

Surjit Nandha regularly travelled to Dublin from Bedford, England looking for her long lost sister who she had not met in 40 years. She had tried registry offices and travelled the country but failed to find her.

Then, on her way back to the airport a taxi driver suggested she phone Joe Duffy to see if he could help. She spoke to Joe for 15 minutes on air while waiting for her flight, and told him that her sister had left home, and she was desperate to find her.

A woman listening on the bus thought the story sounded familiar and told her friend Vicky Jackson – this turned out to be Surjit’s sister. The two women were reunited after more than 40 years.

A remarkable woman

Mother-of-two Susie Long rang Liveline when she discovered that her undiagnosed cancer had spread as she waited months for a colonoscopy. Long’s story highlighted the divide between the public and private health service.

She said she had been condemned to die simply because of hospital waiting lists. She died in 2007. The Susie Long Hospice fund was established and raised hundreds of thousands for others. Duffy described her as a “remarkable woman”.

Detective Duffy

In 2020 it was a case of PI Joe. Duffy rang a bogus hotel that was conning people out of money and masqueraded as “Peter Murphy” – a would-be client.

The man claiming to be the proprietor “Derek” tried to convince Duffy to hand over his details as the broadcaster feigned ignorance.

“I’m not that familiar with Dublin myself,” he said. But after a while Joe revealed it was a sting operation. “Derek, talk to Joe, you’ve gone very quiet,” he said.

Duffy assumed the alias of Peter again in 2023 when contacting a scammer pretending to be a senior executive at AIB. Duffy confronted the scammer who claimed he was legitimate but the Liveline host was having none of it.

He memorably said: “I didn’t come up the Liffey on a doughnut. This is a scam. This is a scam. You’re rumbled man.’

War of words

The Wolfe Tones were the talk of the country in August 2023 when there was debate over “ooh ah, up the Ra” chants at their gig during Féile an Phobail in Belfast. This led to Wolfe Tones lead vocalist Brian Warfield calling into Liveline and he and Duffy clashing over the lyrics of the song Celtic Symphony.

Responding to criticism of the song from a listener, Mr Warfield said Celtic Symphony is “only a baby’s lullaby” compared with songs containing lyrics like “we’re up to our necks in Fenian blood” and “f*** the Pope”.

Mr Warfield has previously said he wrote Celtic Symphony after seeing “ooh ah, up the Ra” written on a wall.

“I’ve heard that argument before, don’t give me all the guff. I don’t want to hear it again because it’s all guff about something written on a wall,” Duffy replied.

When asked by Duffy what “ooh ah, up the Ra” means, Warfield said the chant could refer to Ra, the Egyptian god.

A poignant appeal

In 2014, an appeal was launched on Liveline to find out more information about a man named Sean Parker. Sean had died at the age of 79 in a UK nursing home with no known relatives.

He would talk about his life in Galway to the staff working in the home and in the aftermath of his death those working there contacted the programme.

Locals in Glinsk, Galway heard Parker’s story – that he had left the country after the death of his mother in 1945 – and recognised him.

Thus began a campaign to return Mr Parker’s remains to his home county so he could be laid to rest in the same cemetery as his late mother.

This was successful and a funeral service was held for the country’s “lost son”, during which a radio was brought to the altar – a reference to Liveline.

Pyjamagate

During a memorable episode in March 2019, Duffy spoke to David, a hairdresser from Portlaoise who had banned women wearing nightwear, such as their PJs and slippers, from entering his salon.

However, one irate caller, Catherine, labelled the policy “an attack on working class people”, suggesting that if celebs were to go around in their nightwear, wealthier types would soon do likewise.

It was Duffy himself who dubbed the furore “Pyjamagate”.

Michael O’Leary cut down to size

After days of complaints on the programme about extra charges to reserve aeroplane seats, in July 2017 Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary came on to Liveline to defend the policy himself.

“You’re perfectly free to complain,” O’Leary told listeners – and they did, in their droves.

“Sorry, do you have a sensible question?” O’Leary asked Duffy at one point, at which the host gave him the hairdryer treatment: “How dare you?” before dubbing O’Leary “The Hamlet of mock indignation”. One for the ages.

Highlighting health issues

Throughout his tenure on Liveline, Duffy has highlighted different health stories.

And in 2021, the show dedicated 10 days to discussing menopause. It was a watershed moment for many Irish women who were listening in.

Women from around the country phoned in to share their stories, and spoke about feeling as if they were “going mad”, how completely unprepared they were, and how unsupportive their GP had been.

The series received much acclaim and won an IMRO award.

In fact, Duffy and the Liveline team have also devoted episodes to various health scandals.

The programme has always aimed to give voice to people who, as he says, “can’t get on other programmes”.

During the 2018 cervical cancer scandal Duffy fielded calls from those personally affected – women waiting for results, and those who had been misdiagnosed.

One man, whose wife died from cancer after a misdiagnosis, told Duffy how she had been advised by a doctor to attend a gym when she raised concerns over the pain she was enduring.

A call from the inside

There was huge controversy when prisoner John Daly rang the programme from his cell in Portlaoise prison to confront Irish Independent journalist Paul Williams.

It resulted in the then justice minister launching an inquiry into security measures and a total of 1,600 phones were seized across the prison services.

Daly was released not long after and was subsequently murdered after warning gardaí his life was under threat.

On the money

During the economic crash of 2008, callers began ringing into Liveline expressing their distrust of the banks and discussing moving savings to post offices.

This led to the then finance minister, the late Brian Lenihan, ringing RTÉ’s director general Cathal Goan to complain about the panic Duffy was instilling in callers.

RTÉ defended Duffy but it was reported that a Liveline segment on the same subject due to go out later was pulled. Duffy said he was proud he stood over the programme and never apologised for it, despite calls to do so.

“I stood over that programme then and now,” he told the Herald in 2013. “The callers that day had been on the money, their instincts that things were that much worse than what they were being told were right.”

Seamus and the 40 Airbnbs

Another one for the ages was the case in October 2016 of Seamus, who is Airbnbing out 40 properties around Dublin – none of which he owned, and all of which he was subletting.

An owner of one of the properties, Angela, was unaware of Seamus’s activities until she got a stream of complaints about constant comings and goings, noise and late-night parties, from her former neighbours.

Seamus even boasted about how he jacked up prices at peak times.

It was a lightbulb moment for the nation in realising that the sharing economy is actually pretty one-sided.

David Norris and ‘Magill’

Long-time senator and LGBTQ+ advocate David Norris had his presidential hopes damaged in June 2011 when a 2002 interview with Magill magazine resurfaced.

Journalist Helen Lucy Burke went on Liveline and drew attention to the piece in which Norris, while making clear that he had absolutely no interest in sex with minors, he said “in terms of classic paedophilia, as practised by the Greeks, for example, where it is an older man introducing a younger man to adult life, there can be something said for it”.

This, she said was “startling”, “astounding” and “evil”. One of the most politically significant episodes of Liveline, it kicked off a furore around the presidential election that was eventually won by Michael D Higgins.

Joe Duffy 50th Christmas Eve special broadcast on Duke St, Dublin

A knight in shining armour

Last year, Inchicore resident Theresa accidentally reversed her mobility scooter into the Grand Canal. It was almost a tragedy and she and her blind shih tzu dog Toby may have drowned were it not for two people jumping into the canal to help.

Before she could thank them they disappeared – she rang Liveline to tell Joe and was reconnected with one of her knights in shining armour.

For all of these reasons – and many more – Joe Duffy will be sorely missed by his listeners.