'I wanted to fly over and deck him' - Eamon Casey's son on Gay Byrne

The son of former Bishop of Galway Eamon Casey says that Gay Byrne’s treatment of his mother during a 1993 Late Late Show interview made him want to ‘drop’ the broadcaster.

THE LOVECHILD OF former bishop Eamon Casey says that he wanted to ‘deck’ Gay Byrne over a Late Late Show interview with his mother.

Peter Murphy, whose mother Annie Murphy was once the lover of the former Bishop of Galway and Kilmacudagh, was speaking to Donal McIntyre for TV3′s upcoming Print and be Damned series.

The programme, which airs on Thursday at 9pm, explores the history of Ireland’s newspapers and the stories they have broken and those they have missed.

In the first episode, Donal McIntyre speaks to Murphy about the infamous 1993 interview between Byrne and his mother. In the interview, Byrne told Murphy that if Peter turned out to be half the man Casey was, he would be doing alright.

“I wanted to fly across and deck him,” says Murphy.

The first thing you want to do is drop him. What I loved the best was my mom’s response. The way she got up and walked out, I was like “hell yeah”.

Murphy also details the first time he met his father, in a Boston lawyers office.

“My absolute memory of the event isn’t word for word, but it was me trying to engage [with] him and him having really no interest in engaging back with me. It was so emotional, I remember it affected me really badly, I freaked out”.

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