The Ryans - Ireland's original 'celebridy cupple'

Ireland's original 'celebridy cupple'

THEY were Ireland's original 'celebridy cupple' before the 'wured' celebrity was known in Ireland.
Gerry and Morah Ryan bagged a fine house on Castle Avenue, Clontarf, in Dublin's three-and-three-quarters suburb ahead of the property boom.
Gerry was a self styled 'enfant terrible' at RTE's Montrose radio bunker munching his way through breakfast rolls and self medicating on whiskey or coke.
Morah kept busying raising their brood of five, Lottie being the eldest.
Mrs Ryan developed a reputation for wearing fashion black on the city's celebrity party circuit.
She once mistook me for a television company executive when she herself was most definitely the worst for wear at a private 'celeb' party.
One of her gay music pals at that bash fancied his chances so much that he proposed I go off home to ride him.
His lure being 'four lines of coke'. 'I only drink it with vodka or white rum' I had quipped - in his world, the difference between a straight and gay guy being four lines of coke.
I declined his offer telling him I only rode stars on the way up and not those falling around a dance floor, I left my retort gender neutral.
An RTE ascerbic insider, who is on a leave of absence (try that one in the real world), claimed Ryan was loved by all at Montrose in death only because he was a monster in life.

'mine's a tripple'

He believed Ryan got away with drinking whiskey and sleeping during programming only because management were afraid of him.
He also claimed Ryan's 'coke' snorting took precedence over and above his munching of breakfast rolls.
On the day before the radio star 'popped his clogs' at his Leeson Street rental flat, he had been drinking heavily. He had 'bollicked' a commercial lender at one of Ireland's banking institutions the day previously about his money woes.
The bank had exchanged legal papers on Ryan threatening to call in a series of loans secured against a period property in the city.
The larger than life character was seriously out of cash in the run up to his death as the property boom went bust.
Somewhat of a casualty of the celtic tiger's excess and personal financial stress, in death, Ryan's life insurance policies may pay off some of his debts and secure his reputation.