Remembering two legends of Ireland’s media business

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

I can still see Tony Fenton standing in the middle of a massive dump outside the Nicaraguan capital city of Managua.

The smell from the dump was putrid and the aroma from the rest of us, seared within an inch of our lives in temperatures that would cook a chicken, wasn’t a whole lot better.

It was back in the eighties and we were a motley crew drawn together by Trocaire on a fact-finding mission to Central America where we could see first-hand what wonderful work that Irish development agency was doing in that part of the world.

I was working with the Star at the time, reporting back home with the help of our battle-hardened photographer Noel Gavin.

Tony was phoning in to the Gerry Ryan Show and between us all we were heightening awareness for the charity in advance of the Lenten collection.

Gerry – always the divil – had asked Tony to go because the show wanted someone who was well known but so far out of their comfort zone that it would make for good radio, not just worthy radio on the work of Trocaire, but a bit of entertainment stirred up by Gerry in studio, aided and abetted by Tony on the other side of the world.

And it worked.

This particular day, we were seeing how many families lived on this massive dump, scavenging through other people’s rubbish to eke out a pittance from selling bits of metal, bottles or plastic to someone else.

Tony’s natural environment was the nightlife of Dublin – the VIP clubs that we only knew by name; his best buddy was Jim Corr and he name-dropped like an Olympic champion.

He was king of 2FM’s Hotline at the time and one of the best known voices on the radio – as parodied for his Smashy and Nicey patter as he was loved.

We honestly didn’t think we’d like him – expecting a diva from the radio – but Tony Fenton was one of the nicest, funniest guys I’d ever met.

And when we stood in that dump and saw the detritus of other people’s lives being recycled by those who had nothing at all, Tony took it all in – and then offered an observation from left field.

“Would you say the sun is past its highest point in the sky?” he opined, looking at the ball of fire that was roasting us to a frazzle.

When we agreed that it might well be, Tony ventured: “I think that makes it time for a cold one.”

The chances of a warm one were remote, but a cold one in a Nicaraguan dump was as likely as a Presbyterian Minister saying Mass in the Vatican.

Tony Fenton was a funny man and he died far too soon last week; he was at home in the world of celebrity and he loved it. Music was his world, radio was his passion and he was grateful for every minute of both.

He was a terrible gossip but equally he never took himself seriously.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.