Marian was, in my opinion, an highly intelligent journalist and her work played a major part in modernising the country.
Gay Byrne was a supremely talented presented whose work brought middle Ireland along the journey to modernity. Had one of the current confrontational presenters held his position I think there might have been much more discomfort about the country's social evolution in the 80s.
Gerry Ryan was a disgrace, he used his undoubted intelligence to dumb down the public conversation and got cheap laughs picking on easy targets. The tape of himself and Dave Heffernan telling some poor unfortunate to get a lobotomy is nauseating.