Category: TV Career

Fran O’Toole solo on Me and My Music recorded in June 1975. Programme produced by Ian McGarry. I was honoured that Ian attended my slideshow and the aforementioned tv show in the Royal Hotel Bray November 2015. RIP Ian

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• Your Name: Peter Carroll

From New York City, where I have lived for the last thirty years, I am so sorry to learn of Ian’s passing. As many others have said, he was not only a role-model, a mentor and an all-around wonderful man, he also helped me, as my career lumbered into fruition.

Annexe 3 in RTE was a laugh factory. Working for Mike Murphy on The Live Mike, I shared an office with Larry Masterson and John Keogh, and the little building rocked with laughter from morning to night. Occasionally, Ian and Carolyn would peer around the door and say, “Anyone for coffee?” The answer was always yes. Ian looked after me as I applied to a job in the BBC, counseling me on studio direction and production as I made my way through the interviews. We lost touch when I got the job, and moved to London.

Earlier, Avril McRory, Michael Murphy, and I did a piece with Ian for Youngline in which he ‘taught’ me to ski on the plastic slope in Kilternan. This was the first time I put on skis, and I have figuratively never taken them off since.

We all loved Ian. It was impossible not to. Like everyone else here, I am loving the stories, the anecdotes, the memories. I hope someone tells the story of Ian sitting in on drums with Van Morrison on the Late Late. Larry Masterson, John Keogh, probably Tony Boland and I watched one of the rehearsals. It was wonderful. Ian’s good humour carried him through Van’s glowering demeanour.

Thank you, Ian. You are a mensch. And I am proud to have known you, even for a very short time.

• Your Name: Ultan Guilfoyle

Oh how sad to hear this. I still remember the day he rang me in the Radio Centre in 1981 & asked me to drop over to his office (in one of those ubiquitous Portakabins, as I recollect) for a chat. ‘You know we have to do the Eurovision Sing Contest’, he said. ‘Would you be interested in presenting it?’ And so it came to pass. A gentleman, always.

• Your Name: Doireann Ní Bhrian

I have only ‘discovered’ Ian McGarry today, having seen his name many times in the credits of programmes and Eurovisions. To learn more about this man, I finally searched his name in curiosity, after digesting the credits of the 1997 Eurovision in The Point, where Ian’s name lingers over the final wide shot of Katrina and the Waves. I cannot believe he has only just departed in the past few days.

My sincere condolences to all his family and friends. His music direction style was solid, ‘classical’, and justly favoured the dynamism of a long-sequence jib-arm shot – using the innovation to its fullest potential.

It’s clear from video clips and comments here that he was a supremely talented and much-loved figure, who has left a significant contribution to Irish cultural life.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam

• Your Name: Graham Hickey

The passing of Ian this week in July 2023 really got me thinking and reliving great days of fun, laughter and hard work. I never could understand how Ian could remain so calm when there were so much action going on all around, never phased or confused, Ian just got the job done.

I started to think about the Eurovision Song Contest in 1982 with The Duskey’s, representing Ireland with Here Today Gone Tomorrow, maybe not our most successful entry, but Ian managed to make it really special with a Visit to Dublin Zoo to film the prelim video to send out to the Eurovision networks. What a giggle, I look at it and smile. In fact, so many of the shows and commercials we filmed together make me smile. Working with Sandy Kelly on her brilliant TV series, amazing guests and Ian really stretched Sandy’s incredible vocals with the choices of some of the songs we choose together.

I have to mention a great trip to Nashville with Ian, Sandy Kelly and Kieran Cavanagh as part of the recording of The Showman’s Daughter, this trip led to Sandy’s opportunities to record with some of Country Music’s best, including Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Glen Campbell, in fact a whole album of great duets. The TV show was a great success, all 26 episodes.

We filmed the videos and TV commercials for Sandy’s “Crazy” and “Sweet Dreams” in Malahide Castle, I learned so much sitting close to Ian and taking it all in. I never got in the way, did I? Just loved being a part of Ian’s creations.

We worked on some more Videos, Ballads, Shawn Conors and any opportunity to create video and television programmes.

We did great video’s for Frank McNamara and David Agnew’s album including TV commercials, same for John Hogan all with Ian in command as Producer/Director, always Ian, I wonder why?

So why not do our own series of TV shows. Celtic Note……….. Dubliners, Horslips, Paddy Reilly, Margo, Jim McCann all presented by Sandy Kelly and John McNicholl.

None of the above would have happened without the encouragement from Ian and his willingness to work with us.

For the experience, the fun, the education, Thanks Ian. For your help when I needed information and research, ask Ian McGarry, he knows……….. especially for friendship.

Can’t remember where the pics came from ( well my camera), date and time not so sure, but Ian and Jane look fabulous.

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• Your Name: Shay Hennessy

Ian, thought you’d like to see this picture of some of your Vision Mixing colleagues. The photo was taken by Charles Byrne at Paul Fitzgerald’s leaving do.

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• Your Name: Orla de Cogan

I first worked with Ian in the 1980’s. I was new to RTÉ and Ian was very encouraging. He was always very interested in the technological developments in the industry and was the first person I met in RTÉ with a mobile phone. It was very large and the battery filled a whole briefcase but at the time it was very exciting as the only other place we saw one was on the movie Wallstreet with Micheal Douglas!! Ever the trend setter Ian , I was back over a decade later working with him and new technology with Danny McNally and Lendac Data Systems. I miss seeing Ian’s smiley face around the corridors of RTÉ and chatting about the ongoing developments in TV. We wish him all the best.

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• Your Name: Carol Coffey

Hi Ian, I’d just like to add my good wishes to you along with everybody else. Our connection is that I worked in the RTE Guide from 1978 to 1983. In that time, our paths crossed when I would speak with you about some of your programmes that I would write about in the RTE Guide. We also spoke at times when I would visit the Light Entertainment department to speak with colleagues, among them the late Noel D Greene, Gay Byrne and John McColgan. I did a bit of script-writing too for The Live Mike, Twink and The Billy Boyle Show. One of my abiding memories of you is the fantastic job you did in 1981 on the Eurovision Song Contest. Anyway, I don’t have picture of you and I together so I’m attaching one of me taken in 1979. Best wishes – Brendan Martin

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• Your Name: Brendan Martin

Caption – The production team behind the RTÉ Television/Frontier Films pop quiz ‘Number One’, on set in August 1988.
From left to right; Dave Fanning (team captain), Gerald Heffernan of Frontier Films, his twin brother Dave Heffernan (host), producer Ian McGarry and Gerry Ryan (team captain). This shot was taken for the RTÉ Guide.
Photographer -Cooney, John
Date of photograph – 01/Aug/1988
Rights holder RTÉ

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• Your Name: Anne Geraghty

Dear Ian,
You never knew this but you were my guide when I first attempted to direct for television. I’d come from theatre and radio and quickly realised that I hadn’t a clue when a good friend told me “you make an awful lot of noise in the directing box”. I confessed immediately and asked what I should do. ” Check out how Ian McGarry works”, she said. I did, and was amazed and delighted to witness your quiet, very much in control way of dealing with the crew, how on music programmes you consulted and knew the score and counted down the beats for each shot. Your visual interpretation of the dynamics of the music was always spot on – you never just did coverage but offered an exact interpretation to the viewer in which vision and sound were united so well that your skill in blending them together was invisible. I learned so much from watching you at work but knew I could never compete. You are always the master, the maestro.
You were a pleasure to deal with even though on one occasion you had every reason to murder me. In the early 1980s you were one of the few people in RTE who had a VHS machine. In those days a VHS machine was a prized possession. I called into your office to ask if I could borrow it for a short while. You weren’t there, so as it was lunch time I did the unforgivable and took it into my own office and started viewing. A few minutes later you came in looking distressed, disturbed and crestfallen, and as you were telling me that someone had stolen your VHS machine you realised that I was the thief. It was a moment straight out of situation comedy. When we both recovered our wits and I made a grovelling apology, you sighed and said, “oh man, don’t do this to me again … when your are finished will you bring it back, thanks”. I did, and we never mentioned my criminality again, but I have never forgotten your decency and kindness in this and all my dealings with you.
When I was producing The Live Mike we collaborated on a crazy sketch in pre- Riverdance times about Irish dancing and you did a brilliant directing job with Fran Dempsey in a gymslip dancing frantically to a ceili band which got faster and faster. Chaos everywhere with dancers out of step and music out of tune. Not what would be expected on a programme directed by the great Ian McGarry!
All my love, Ian,
John Lynch.

• Your Name: John Lynch