Late Late Show talking points; Gabriel Byrne on politics, Jennifer Zamparelli on swinging in Ireland
Fresh off the back off an appearance at Cork’s International Film Festival, Gabriel Byrne was in The Late Late Show studio to talk politics, storytelling and why he believes the Irish are finally embracing our culture.
Never afraid to speak his mind on US politics, the 75-year-old launched right into it when Kielty welcomed him to the stage on Friday night.
Having previously been critical of US President Donald Trump, Byrne said he believed the election of Zohran Mamdani represented a great deal of hope to many ordinary Americans.
“It’s time for the old guard in the Democratic Party to move on,” he said. “The reality is, I think they have lost, did quite a long time ago, lost touch with the American working class, who are really disillusioned.” ”
“[Mamdani] is fighting for people against, in my opinion, the great enemies of our modern age, the bankers, the billionaires, the politicians who are in their pockets. And the guys from Silicon Valley.”
Noting his long-standing involvement in politics, Kielty shared a photo of Gabriel Byrne campaigning alongside former president Michael D. Higgins during Higgins’ 1989 general-election campaign.
“I think we were absolutely blessed in having such a magnificent President, a representative of our country, a poet, a public intellectual, a campaigner,” he said of Higgins. And of our new president, Catherine Connolly? The actor said he believed she would be a “wonderful representative” of the country.
“She’s empathetic, compassionate, intelligent. I think she speaks to people and for them.” “
“We’ve been very lucky, really, in terms of the presidents that we’ve had, Mary McAleese, Mary Robinson, sometimes I wish we’d vote that way when it came to the general elections,” he admitted.
Commenting on his passion and the “fire in his belly,” host Kielty asked the actor whether he’d ever consider entering politics.
“I could never belong to a party,” he admitted. “The older I get, the more I value independence.”
star also spoke about the impact he believes colonialism had on the Irish as storytellers.
“I think, you know, because of colonialism, our culture was suppressed, buried, denied, and we went underground, and we went into an oral tradition where poems were passed from one person to another, stories were told around the fireside. That was a form of theatre. And what was in play there was the imagination.
“We’ve always retained this power of imagination and the power to tell a story.
“Oscar Wilde said the Irish are the greatest storytellers since the Greeks. And I really believe that,” he went on, saying he believes the Irish have “a soft power” that goes around the world.
“We have demolished [negative stereotypes]. We’re a nation that people look to and respect and admire, and we have so much to offer.”
Rousing out a powerful speech, Byrne implored the audience and viewers at home to “retain the Irish character”.
“Speak our own language. One of the awful things about colonialism, it makes you feel ashamed of your own culture. Irish is something you shouldn’t speak, you shouldn’t be doing football, hurling… I think we are coming into a place now where we are beginning to — at last — embrace the richness and the power of our own culture, and we don’t have to look anywhere else to get it.”
Adding to the conversation on our embrace of Irishness and the Irish language, star Carrie Crowley addressed the film’s role in a “cultural revival” during her interview.
“It feels amazing that [the film] was connected in some way with the revival, but maybe the revival was just meant to happen anyway. Maybe it was just lying dormant, hoping that somebody would just crack that little shell on us and say, ‘Come on, come out’.
“I say this to people all the time — I think my friends are sick of me saying it — we all have Irish, so just let it out. Every now and again. It doesn’t have to be correct. It doesn’t have to be perfect.”
The actress is currently presenting a new show on TG4, Buildings Beo, a renovation series featuring historic community spaces.
“This is about buildings in various communities around the country that have fallen asunder and one of them in Macroom was a theater that had been raised to the ground. So you’re looking at all the scar tissue of a building that had been a community building. And the idea was that over a period of time, which turned out to be three years, we would go and watch these buildings from their kind of desecrated state to the full repair and see if it if it worked, if they were beo, if they were alive again.”
Jennifer Zamparelli also paid Kielty a visit on Friday to discuss her new podcast
Introducing her by quipping she was “swapping waltzing for swinging,” Zamparelli was quick to correct the host.
“I’m not swapping waltzing for swinging. I’m about swinging. I’m not actually doing the swinging.”
The 45-year-old said the podcast was an immediate yes for her as “there seems to be an appetite for talking about riding” in Ireland.
The host said the podcast has taught her there is a “thriving” swinging community in Ireland.
The presenter said a vetern Irish swinger who she interviewed for the podcast talked about it “quite profoundly” which she found “shocking” as well as interesting.
“He did say something that kind of stood out to me, and it was, if you’re ever in McDonald’s at like, 4am and there’s a group of people all disheveled and exhausted looking, they probably just come from a sex party.”
Zamparelli said the podcast is “about awareness,” noting the lack of sex education us Irish traditionally got in schools.
“In Ireland, in the Catholic schools, the nuns would wheel out the television. Remember that? And would say stuff like ‘and the man and the woman would have a lovely little hug, and then God gave them a baby’. And that was it. I didn’t know anything, where anything went till I was about 42.
Asked whether she might consider joining the UK version of Dancing with the Stars now that the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing is looking for two new hosts, Zamparelli said: “No, not at all, I love being at home… and I wouldn’t get a look in over there.”
“I’m happy where I am. I love doing . It sounds cliché, but it really is one of those lovely shows to work on. It gets me through the winter.”
