Eamon Dunphy
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Eamon Dunphy (born 3 August, 1945) is an Irish radio and TV personality and former professional football player. He now presents the breakfast programme on Dublin's Newstalk 106 radio station.
Career
Football
Dunphy grew up in the (then) working class northside Dublin suburb of Drumcondra. A promising footballer, he left Dublin while still a teenager to join Manchester United F.C. as an apprentice. Dunphy did not break into the first team at United and subsequently played for York City, Millwall, Charlton Athletic and Reading. It was at Millwall that Dunphy made the most impact, he was considered an intelligent and skilful player in Millwall's midfield. Dunphy played 23 times for the Republic of Ireland and remains Millwall's most capped international player. In 1977, he accompanied John Giles back to Ireland to join Shamrock Rovers FC. Giles wanted to make the club Ireland's first full time professional club and hoped to make Rovers into a force in European football by developing talented young players in Dublin that would otherwise go to England. Dunphy was originally intended to be in charge of youth development. However, despite an FAI Cup winners medal in 1978, Dunphy quickly became disillusioned with the Irish game and dropped out of football altogether to concentrate on a career in journalism.Journalism
After retiring from football, Dunphy went into journalism, first writing on football for the Sunday Tribune and then contributing regular columns on both football and current events for the Sunday Independent. Most recently, Dunphy has been employed to write a column on football for the Daily Star's Irish edition.Since the 1980s Dunphy has also written a number of books. His first and most widely praised book is Only a Game?: Diary of a Professional Footballer, which is an autobiographical account of his days playing for Millwall. Following the phenomenal success of their album 'The Joshua Tree', he was commissioned by the rock band U2 to write the band's history. His book 'Unforgettable Fire - the story of U2' was published in 1988, although the band were not happy with some of its content. Dunphy has also written a biography of Manchester United legend Matt Busby and in 2002 ghostwrote the autobiography of Republic of Ireland and Manchester United footballer Roy Keane.
Broadcast
Since the mid 1980s, Dunphy has appeared as an analyst in RTÉ's football coverage. Since RTÉ acquired the rights to show English football, Dunphy has been a regular contributor to the The Premiership programme.He has also had a prominent radio career, and was the original host of the popular current affairs show The Last Word on Today FM. This very successful and innovative show came to an end after a period of difficulties with the stations management.
In 2002, Dunphy became the first male host of the quiz show The Weakest Link, which aired on TV3, for just one series. In 2003, Dunphy was hired again by TV3 to host their new Friday night chat show, entitled The Dunphy Show. Pitted head-to-head with RTÉ's The Late Late Show, Dunphy's show lost the highly publicised "ratings war", and was cancelled before its original run was to conclude.
In September 2004, Dunphy took over the Breakfast show slot on the Dublin radio station NewsTalk 106 from David McWilliams. The show tried to court controversy and listeners in equal measure. He failed to attract the large listenership predicted, with only a few additional thousand tuning in. Attempts to attract disaffected morning listeners with controversial social commentators like Amanda Brunker failed to connect with listeners. In June 2006 Dunphy announced his intention to leave NewsTalk 106 citing an inability to sustain the demands of an early morning schedule. His decision to leave Newstalk coincided with the announcement that the station had won a national broadcasting licence.
In July 2006 RTE announced that Dunphy will present a new weekly programme as part of the new RTÉ Radio 1 autumn schedule. [link]
Dunphy is also impersonated, to some acclaim, in Irish comedy show Après Match. Their skits caused offence to Dunphy, who threatened to stop broadcasting on RTÉ, claiming that he and his colleagues were not being shown "due respect".
Controversy
From the early 1980s, Dunphy made his name as a controversial and belligerent journalist. Among the targets of his dissapproval were tv figures such as Pat Kenny, whom he christened "the Plank" and a concept he called "Official Ireland" - by which he meant the liberal Irish media and cultural elite, epitomised by the Irish Times newspaper and the then President of Ireland, Mary Robinson. He argued at the time that people such as former Taoiseach Charles Haughey represented the "real people of Ireland", and were being attacked by the false left wing consensus of "Official Ireland".Dunphy in his youth held far left wing Trotskyist political views, but in middle age he espoused what might be called "neo-liberal" values, including freedom for business from government interference. Dunphy is known to be friendly with many wealthy business figures in Ireland. He is also friendly with socialist activist Eamonn McCann, however. In the early 1990s, Dunphy, in line with the editorial line at the Sunday Independent, was a harsh critic of the Provisional IRA and Sinn Fein and their supporters. Dunphy described them as "morally diseased" and argued that Irish nationalists in Northern Ireland had not been badly treated by the British state and that the use of violence by republicans was illegitimate.
In the world of football, Dunphy attacked the League of Ireland, which he characterised as amateurish, Irish footballer Liam Brady, who he called a "bitter little man", successive Republic of Ireland national football team managers and even international stars such as Michel Platini. In 1987, Dunphy was almost alone in supporting the sale of the Shamrock Rovers' ground Glenmalure Park to property developers. Many people attributed this stance to Dunphy's friendship with the Kilcoyne family, who profited financially from the sale. Most controversially of all, Dunphy was a harsh critic of Jack Charlton, Ireland's most successful national team manager. Dunphy accused Charlton of being a bully, of playing ugly football and of not making the best use of the players at his disposal. A deep personal enmity developed between the two men.
In 1990, Dunphy caused huge controversey in Ireland by attacking the performance of the national team at that year's World Cup. After a 0-0 draw with Egypt, he called the team "a disgrace" and angrily threw his pen across the studio. This performance temporarily made Dunphy into a figure of public hatred in Ireland. Dunphy was sent to Italy to cover the remaining games, but Jack Charlton, the Irish team manger refused to speak to him or to answer his questions. Dunphy remained critical of Charlton for the remainder of his tenure as manager, but the public ostracism of Dunphy subsided within a few years.
He has repeatedly been the subject of controversy over his use of drugs, both legal and illegal, which he has admitted. This has resulted in him receiving a 20-year driving ban, starting in 2002, for drink driving. While publicly stating his support for Ireland's workplace smoking ban, he has been photographed smoking at his own workplace since its introduction. During the course of his breakfast radio show and in response to questions about drugs being covered on the show Dunphy made coded references to his recreational use of 'coca cola' and also 'pepsi'.
Also in 2002, Dunphy aggressively defended Roy Keane, after he was dismissed by Mick McCarthy from the Irish team at the Fifa World Cup in Korea and Japan. Dunphy claimed Keane was entirely in the right in the matter and characterised McCarthy as a blundering fool who was exposed by Keane's professionalism.
In November 2005 he was involved in further controversy as a result of a 15 minute outburst on live TV over the Keane-McCarthy affair. In the broadcast he became increasingly angry at the criticism levelled at the former Republic of Ireland football captain Roy Keane by the other panellists. In the resulting outburst he called Niall Quinn a "creep", "an idiot" and a "showboat" while also slandering journalist Rod Liddle by saying he "left his wife for a young one". In scenes that became increasingly farcical he removed his microphone and appeared to be getting up to walk off the set. He was later quoted as saying:
- "I'll tell you what [Roy Keane] is, He's a gentleman, he's a class act, he's a rebel and he stands up to bullies".
- "He's right, he's right about everything!"
On his most recent radio programme, Dunphy developed some odd relationships. In a reversal of the views he espoused ten years earlier, he displayed outright animosity towards right wing Minister of Justice Michael McDowell and had cosy discussions with former IRA commander Martin McGuinness.
Dunphy's style
Dunphy makes regular visceral attacks on players and mangers he watches, for instance;
on 8 March 2006 when speaking on RTÉ television in the aftermath of Liverpool's exit from the Champions League at the hands of SL Benfica. In a characteristically harsh assessment of the Liverpool team, Dunphy said of their Spanish winger Luis García:
- "They (Liverpool) should put Garcia where he belongs - in the dustbin."
- "We'll all see through Mourinho. We'll find out he's just a Bengal lancer ["Chancer" -Irish slang word]!"
- "Fat and a clown. A fat clown for all to see."
- ""You need dictatorships and poverty to produce great footballers."
- "Machiavelli was an Italian... Wasn't he, John? Who did he play for?"
- "No football team will win this tournament. This tournament will be won by the faceless empires of corporate greed. The Jules Rimet trophy has become hijacked by the world of big business bastards, sold to the TV networks of Satan. There will be a final on July 12th. It will have no soul. It will be between Nike and Snickers."
References
External links
| Radio Telefís Éireann presenters and hosts |
| |
| Chat show hosts: Gay Byrne | Frank Hall | Pat Kenny | Mike Murphy | Ryan Tubridy | ||
| News & Current Affairs: Charlie Bird | John Bowman | Barry Cowan | Donagh Diamond | Sean Duignan | Brian Farrell | Mark Little | John O'Donoghue | Bill O'Herlihy | Olivia O'Leary | Sean O'Rourke | ||
| Sports: Eamon Dunphy | Johnny Giles | George Hamilton | Jimmy Magee | Michael O'Hehir | Tracey Piggott | ||
| Newsreaders and Announcers: Anne Doyle | Don Cockburn | Derek Davis | Bryan Dobson | Charles Mitchel | Maurice O'Doherty | Emer O'Kelly | ||
| | ||
| See also: List of programmes broadcast by RTÉ |
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