Home Page > Entertainment > TV & Radio > After years of doubt, Byrne embraces therapy himself

Blogs

News

Sport

Entertainment

Advice
- Green Card

Roots

Make a comment

Larger Text

E-mail

After years of doubt, Byrne embraces therapy himself

CAHIR O'DOHERTY

IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Thursday, April 2, 2009, 1:10 PM

Updated Thursday, July 23, 2009, 5:23 PM

Read more: Gabriel Byrne

For years now Irish leading man Gabriel Bryne, 59, has shunned stardom and all of its trappings, opting instead for a quiet life in Brooklyn in a house filled with books and art.

If there’s a spectrum that begins with Mickey Rourke, then Byrne is probably at the other end of it. But despite his obvious shyness and his quest for privacy, Byrne’s career has only accelerated.

Beginning with RTE’s soap opera "Bracken" back in the 1970’s through to his recent Golden Globe-winning turn as the deeply conflicted psychotherapist in "In Treatment," Byrne has created a body of work that has quietly turned him into one of the most sought after actors in the world.

It’s that soulful quality he has, that craggy face line with character and experience that makes him so believable as psychiatrist Paul Weston in HBO’s "In Treatment." Centering on the conversations held between doctor and patient in real time, five nights a week in half-hour sessions, the show has earned a much-deserved lead actor Golden Globe for Gabriel Byrne.

Night after night Byrne’s brilliant therapist deals with demons that lurk beneath the placid exterior of his various patients. But recently, in his own documentary, "Stories From Home," Byrne has candidly revealed the demons he has dealt with since childhood.

It must be difficult for this intensely private actor to recall the years of abuse he suffered from age eight to 12 at his Christian Brothers primary school in Ireland. Speaking to The London Times recently, Byrne said: “There were things like being lifted off the ground by the hair of your head and being beaten with chair legs. One guy was held out of the window by his leg. It was accepted because a child doesn't have the critical apparatus to examine a situation like that.”

Typically he is, he says, reluctant to “carp on about it” and yet he recognizes that, while he didn't suffer physically, “the damage was emotional, and that took me a long time to shake off.”

A spiraling cycle of drink and depression was only broken when he decided to seek professional treatment, calling it “one of the most difficult things ever in my life.” That, he says, was a few years back and now he doesn't miss drinking.

1 2 Next page >

Vote now - Buzz this story up!

RELATED ARTICLES
RELATED TOPICS

Gabriel Byrne

E-mail

Be the first to make a comment.

Join us - follow IrishCentral.com

Fan us

Google Buzz

Join us - follow IrishCentral.com

Facebook

Buzz

Twitter

On a given day, 85% of the population of Ireland listens to a licensed service on Irish radio. The first broadcast on Irish radio took place in 1925, with 2RN’s test transmissions. 2RN later became RTE Radio 1, which was continuing to broadcast as of 2006, making it one of the oldest continuously operating public stations not just in Irish radio, but in all of Europe. RTE, which stands for Radio Telefis Eireann, is the Public Service broadcaster of Irish Radio. RTE Radio 1 offers the full spectrum of Irish radio, from news and current affairs to music and sport. RTE’s second national radio station, RTE 2fm, plays popular music. It has a special place in Irish radio as the station that is the first to play any new single released by U2. 2fm started broadcasting in 1979. In 2008, 2fm was the second most popular station in Irish radio after RTE1. One of the main commercial stations in Irish radio is Today FM, which was originally Radio Ireland. Today FM plays a mix of music and news and current affairs. Along with the national stations, Irish radio also features regional and local stations. While Ireland had been one of the first countries in Europe to go into radio, it was a relative latecomer to television. The state operated on a shoestring budget for much of the time after its formation in 1922, and the Department of Finance would not approve of anything it deemed to be a 'luxury' that the people could do without; Irish TV fell into this category, though this did not mean that Irish TV was completely absent, south of Northern Ireland. When the BBC activated its Divis transmitter in July 1955, it was strong enough to be seen in much of Ireland, roughly north of a line from Sligo, running down to Wicklow. Ulster Television, the Northern Ireland contractor for ITV, followed in October 1959; however, the picture quality was considerably lower for viewers in the Republic than it was for those in Northern Ireland. In the late 1950s, a Television Committee was formed; their goal was to set up an Irish TV service with as little financial commitment from Dublin as possible. It initially recommended setting up a service along the lines of ITV, plus five mountaintops as transmission sites, which were also equipped for FM radio transmission. However, since President Eamon de Valera was somewhat wary of Irish TV, nothing more of consequence was done until Sean Lemass succeeded him as Taoiseach in 1959. A year later, Radio Eireann was converted from an arm of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs into a semi-state body and given responsibility for television. Telefis Eireann began broadcasting on New Year's Eve, 1961. The opening address by President de Valera described the benefits and disadvantages of the new medium; he went on to say that "Like atomic energy, it can be used for incalculable good, but it can also do irreparable harm." Irish TV opened up a completely new world to the Irish people. Topics which were hitherto not discussed openly and soberly in Ireland, such as abortion, contraception and various other controversial topics, were now being discussed in Irish TV studios; The Late Late Show, which began in July 1962 and is still running as of 2009, and its original host, Gay Byrne, pioneered many of these discussions, and has been credited with being a major influence in the changing social structure of Ireland. In 1977, a new Fianna Fail government came to power, and as one of its many promises, the government quickly authorized a second Irish TV channel to be run by RTE. RTE 2's mandate was to provide alternative television. The new Irish TV channel went on the air in November 1978. In 1987, RTE 2 was renamed Network 2. Although Irish language programs, such as news bulletins (Nuacht) and the long-running documentary series Leargas ('Insight'), have been an integral part of the schedule, a new Irish-language TV service, Teilifís na Gaeilge (now TG4), began broadcasting in 1996. RTE developed its only major studio complex outside Dublin in Cork. RTE Cork, opened in 1995 and became a huge success. It also became a large contributor to network output on both Radio One and RTE One. In January 2007, RTE announced plans to launch a channel, with the working title of RTE International, which would offer programs from RTE One and Two as well as TG4. British terrestrial TV channels are now commonly available throughout the Republic, but the number of channels received varies depending on the region. Despite this availability, RTE still manages to achieve over 50% of the total Irish TV audience for all channels.

Blogs

After years of doubt, Byrne embraces therapy himself

Be the first to make a comment.

Related Items

Join us - follow IrishCentral.com

Join us - follow IrishCentral.com

news

sport

entertainment

gossip

business

travel

advice

opinion

multimedia

roots

food & drink

blogs