Just another dead junkie?

They say all publicity is good publicity. Dublin hardcore punk band, The Crows, certainly adopted this stance when they chose to print the now infamous ‘just another dead junkie’ t-shirt. It came nine months after the death of RTE television and radio presenter, Gerry Ryan. Ryan was found dead in his Leeson Street apartment on the 30th of April 2011. He was a figurehead of RTE who was known extremely well throughout Ireland, devotedly presenting his morning radio show on RTE 2FM on a daily basis since 1988. 

When news broke of his death, tributes poured in for father-of-five Ryan. The loss of anyone is always going to be harrowing to family members and friends alike and with Ryan having such a vast public following there was sure to be many mourners attending his funeral in Clontarf, on the north side of Dublin. However, the tragic loss of Ryan soon turned to controversy with findings that his death most likely was caused by an overdose of cocaine. 

The band in question which printed the t-shirt have stated that, “the t-shirt is an attack on the stiflingly conservative and docile state in which modern Irish society exists”. So they are not out to defame drug abusers across Ireland but just to indirectly attack modern Irish society. Makes sense, right? They claim to have not contacted numerous national newspapers and radio stations, therefore, they are not the ones to blame for their bands name being splashed across magazines and newspapers nationwide. I'm sure it was all coincidental that they were shortly due to release their new album a few weeks after the story broke. 

Although, it may not have been the band itself, it may have been their friends, their old college buddies or even the local barman. Either way, they succeeded in gaining national notoriety, albeit, for a day or two. Keeping in mind that it is a band which plays a genre which has always, except in America during the 1980’s, struggled to blossom in any sort of public sphere. An entirely underground musical genre, in the most authentic sense of the word, playing to crowds of thirty to seventy people in tiny bars, who would all know each other to see and, on the most part, talk to. So was this stunt a genuine dig at a media influenced society that they claim us Dubliners are besieged with, or was it a tasteless hardcore punk band aiming to gain a greater following?

It does give food for thought though in a world which is utterly perpetuated by popular media every minute of the day. Our lives are controlled by the news media - whether radio, television, print or on the web. However, despite supplying us with all of our daily information, the media does nothing to ensure unbiased, objective reporting. Sensation has become a mainstay in capitalist society. Sensationalise, shock, to sell more papers, to get more viewers, more listeners. The treatment of Gerry Ryan’s death was much like this in the news media, one day a national hero, a loss to us all; the next, slated and defamed by tabloid media as a junkie cocaine-abuser.

It comes as no surprise that according to a recent report in the UK’s Guardian newspaper, UK newspapers outperform home-grown publications in Ireland. The Irish Times is reportedly at a loss of $1.4 million a month, yet The Sunday Times’ Irish Edition, and tabloids like the Sun, the Daily Mirror and the Daily Star are all benefiting from the 4.5 million Irish population, with the Daily Star gaining 11% of its business from its Irish edition. Despite the recession, Irish consumers are also willing to pay more for their news - about double what their British neighbours pay - especially for gossip tabloids.

With that, the hypocrisy, general inaccuracy and total disregard for objectivity in Irish news media, particularly that of tabloid newspapers, is exhibited  in Ryan’s own show. He regularly condemned drug-abusers but at the same time he had an open secret that he suffered with an addiction to cocaine, allegedly even using it at RTE Christmas parties. Surely this rumour would not have just been swept under the carpet by the higher echelons of the state broadcaster. It certainly would not be accustomed to the executives of a company to engage in dodgy dealings. Be them banks, politicians or broadcasting executives, surely not?

Ryan even went as far as 'rapping' in an attempt to engage an easily influenced younger generation, as seen in this not so popular youtube video;

In Ireland, hundreds die each year due to drug related illnesses. However, none will make newspaper headlines as none will have had such a profound affect on society. Ryan was one of the greats of modern Irish broadcasting both on television and radio but he also was, as Kevin Myers described, “a criminal fool, and an enemy of all that's decent and honourable and true in society”. Yes, cocaine is cool, cocaine is chic, cocaine is football mega-millionaires, cocaine is property in the Mediterranean, cocaine is that immortal feeling, cocaine is a brace of naked supermodels lying akimbo across your bed; cocaine is a 17-year-old working class boy dead in Drimnagh, cocaine is the huddled wino lying in her own filth in a shop doorway near Grafton Street, cocaine is the cartel that runs a criminal state in Colombia. Take cocaine, and you become party to all that, and Gerry did. 

So, Gerry Ryan, a man who possessed a larger than life persona and enlivened a nation for numerous years, who practically received a state funeral, should he be remembered as a stalwart of Irish society or as just another dead junkie? It’s all a matter of opinion.

S.DAWSON 01/02/2012