Cathal BarryVeteran broadcaster George Hook talks faith and family with Cathal Barry
Like it or not, there is just no avoiding the inimitable George Hook. The ubiquitous broadcaster is perhaps best known for his rugby punditry on RTÉ and as the host of Newstalk’s flagship drive time programme The Right Hook.
He is by his own admission a master communicator yet for years lacked the ability to verbalise his fears, his faith and most importantly, his love for his family.
That’s all changed now, however, and he opened up to The Irish Catholic with the same refreshing honesty readers will have surely come to associate with the man.
George was born into what he described as a “poor” family in Co. Cork in 1941.
“Forget about money, I didn’t see running water in a house until I was 14,” he said.
His parents left school at a young age and were “essentially educated” by the Cork lending library.
“They were incredible readers. My entire memory of my childhood was everybody buried into a book,” he recalled.
Best education
George’s father doubled jobbed to ensure that his son received “the best education” available.
CIÉ clerk by day and dance band drummer by night, the extra money George Sr earned was the “crucial difference” that enabled his son to attend the prestigious Presentation Brothers College (PBC).
George recalled being brought by his mother’s hand aged seven to the renowned private school in Cork to negotiate paying for her son’s education in fortnightly instalments because they couldn’t afford the lump sum.
Hook made no bones about it. “Going there changed my entire life,” he said, noting that just a handful of people where he was from at that time would have been fortunate enough to do the Leaving Certificate.
“So, I had this extraordinary advantage which made my life. I would have had a different life otherwise and I owe that to my mother and my father,” he said.
Noting that he received his love of history, reading and sport from his father, George conceded that his talent for talking came from his mother.
“I had this extraordinary childhood way above what I was entitled to really. It was just an extraordinary upbringing. I was very lucky,” he said.
George spoke fondly of his time under the tutelage of Presentation Brothers such as Matthew, Alban, Angelo and Athanasius.
“I can remember them all. I got a fantastic education from those guys.
“I got mental arithmetic, punctuation, paragraphing, spelling, all that sort of stuff that is now unknown,” he said.
It was in ‘Pres’ too that George developed his love for Rugby. “Pres, then as now, was a rugby school,” he said, recalling the “intense rivalry” between his alma mater and the neighbouring Christian Brothers School, the only other fee-paying school in Cork.
Admitting that he “never quite made it” in schools rugby, George was quick to point out that the New Zealanders “believe that the best coaches weren’t great rugby players”.
“When you think about it that’s understandable,” he said, noting that it’s often difficult for gifted players to impart or explain their talent to others. “I had to teach myself,” he said, “so when I became a coach I was better at explaining it because I had to go through that whole learning process. None of it was instinctive,” he reasoned.
George, a former Connacht and London Irish coach who oversaw the US Eagles’ matches at the World Cup in 1987, still coaches underage rugby to this day.
Whatever about private schooling, third level education was prohibitively expensive for the Hooks at that time so George’s only option was to join the work force.
Noting that the only feasible choices for him at the time were to get a job in a bank, become priest or sell insurance, George spent some time discerning a vocation to the Dominicans.
He was inspired to join the Dominicans by “a great” Confessor of his, Fr Moran, of St Mary’s Church on Pope’s Quay and even went to discuss joining the order with the then Dominican vocations director in their Tallaght priory.
“I really was taken by the Dominicans, the order of preachers of course. Going around the country preaching, as you can imagine, really appealed to me,” he said with a laugh.
Ultimately, though, the priesthood just wasn’t for him. “I was okay with the idea of poverty and I was okay with the idea of obedience but I balked at chastity,” he said, laughing more heartily still. “I decided then that the priesthood just wasn’t for me!”
At that time his father had just been promoted by CIÉ to O’Connell Street and the family moved to Dublin where George got a job in an insurance firm, which eventually led him to England.
By the time he was 21 he had saved enough money to return to Ireland where he began accountancy studies. However, George soon realised that crunching numbers just wasn’t for him.
In search of a job in which he would be talking, George eventually took up a sales position.
“I was very successful at that. I made a lot of money,” he said, before getting “delusions of grandeur” and setting up his own catering business.
“That was a fatal error,” he admitted. “I went into a business I didn’t understand and hated. It was a guaranteed failure but I was at that for 30 years.”
George married his wife around the same time he set up his defunct catering enterprise.
His other half, ‘the lovely Ingrid’ as he regularly refers to her as on his drive time radio show, is as “tough as old boots”.
On second thoughts, George corrected himself: “She’s the bravest woman I have ever met.”
Ingrid, a respected academic who served as head of the School of Pharmacy at Trinity College, was to “keep the show on the road” for the Hook family for the next 30 years.
George, by admission was “useless”. “I was contributing next to nothing,” he said.
It was a difficult period for a man as proud as George, who even contemplated suicide on occasion.
He is immensely grateful to Ingrid for “hanging in there” when “nobody else would have”.
“I have been incredibly hurtful towards her, not because I wanted to, I’m not a cruel person, but sins of omission are as bad as sins of commission.
“She stuck at it for the children, but I also think, or I hope, that she stuck at it because she still loved me,” he said.
The turning point came the mid-90s when he was granted an “extraordinary break” to work in television.
George’s stint on TV led to newspapers, newspapers led to radio, and the rest, as they say, is history.
The work gave George a new lease in life and an “incredible sense of self-esteem”.
“For the first time, Ingrid, who had looked at the man she had married and who seemed to be a complete failure, suddenly saw a husband who appeared to be able to do something,” he said.
At the age 56, George “finally discovered” what he was “born to do” and he’s as happier now than ever before.
“As soon as that red light goes on in the studio, I am just suddenly transported to a place where I am so happy. I just love it. I love what I do,” he said.
Like all good things in life, though, they one day must come to an end. Hook, who has recently retired from punditry with RTÉ, is well aware of that and plans to step down from his role in Newstalk in September 2016.
“I want to go on my own terms,” he said.
George is “incredibly proud” of the relationship he has with his three children; Michelle, George Jr and Alison. “I’m still dad, there’s none of this George nonsense.”
Likewise, his seven grandchildren, three boys and four girls, “daren’t” call him by his Christian name. “They call my grandad. I take that very seriously,” he said.
Faith is another component of George’s life he takes seriously. The veteran broadcaster announced earlier this year that he had “re-converted” to Catholicism during a brief stint in hospital, adding that he found “peace” while receiving daily Communion there.
George recalled how in the lead up his knee replacement operation in January he had been petrified about not coming out of the anaesthetic.
“I inexplicably believed that I was not going to see my family again.
“I really believed that. They didn’t know it, but I was quite upset,” he said.
The night prior to his surgery in the Blackrock Clinic in Dublin, George called for the chaplain. He wanted to have his confession heard.
Acknowledging it had been quite some time since his last, George confessed his sins before being asked to pray the Act of Contrition, which he “remembered all of”, and went onto become a daily communicant for the rest of his stay in hospital.
Sceptical
Over the years George has become increasingly sceptical of Richard Dawkins and other prominent atheists who openly criticise religion.
He has grown tired too of people texting into his radio show dismissing the Faith as “fairy tales from 2000 years ago”.
Noting atheists’ proposal that our lives are finite, George said the proposal he has chosen to believe is that there is everlasting life.
“Their proposal is that there nothing. My proposal, or the proposal that I have chosen to believe, and I have secretly always believed, is that there is something.
“I’m not sure he’s [God] got a white beard or a fiery chariot or that Peter is going to meet me at the gate but the overwhelming thing that helps me is the thought of Heaven.
“I don’t know whether there is nothing or whether there is something but one is believable as the other,” he said.
Noting that there is “no better” belief system to pass onto children as a way of living than the Catholic faith, George said he is “increasingly coming around to the idea that faith actually comes from parents rather than schools and that a parent should teach their children about faith”.
“The idea of love thy neighbour as thyself is still a very good idea as a way to live. The idea of faith, hope and charity. The idea of thou shalt not lie. The idea of honouring your father and your mother. Thou shalt not kill. What a way to live. There is no better way to show your kids how to live their lives,” he said.
“The atheists say they believe all that too but I don’t think it has the same resonance,” he added.
Turning to the clergy, nuns and, in particular, the religious orders and congregations, George has nothing but high praise for their “astonishing” work in education and healthcare down through the years.
“I don’t get why they are getting such a hard time because, apart from a minority, there are all these men and women who have given their entire lives in hospitals, in schools, whatever the field might be. For all the people who talk about abuse, it’s still a tiny minority. There’s no question about that,” he said.
Alienated
Noting that it has become “sort of politically incorrect” to attend Mass nowadays, George said people who have become alienated from the Church could benefit from returning to the fold.
“In a way it’s sort of politically incorrect to go to church now. People who go to church now are almost like bankers in that they’re afraid to say they go to church,” he said.
George’s advice to non-practising Catholics and those of no faith at all is to consider the potential pros and cons of religion on their lives.
“I think if you got a sheet of paper and wrote down what this would mean to me as a person, what it would mean to my children and my grandchildren, then I think the positive column fills up far greater than the negative column,” he said.
As our conversation drew to a close it struck this reporter as unusual for the infamously controversial George Hook to not have said anything particularly provocative… until we arrived at the topic of religious education that is.
George is particularly critical of the way religion is taught in schools, which he claims to be outdated.
“The modern kid isn’t going to believe the star and the three wise men and the talking snake. You have got to teach it a different way and I don’t know why we aren’t,” he said.
George himself would love nothing more than to “go into schools and preach the message to young kids”.
“I would love to do that because we are teaching it [religion] the wrong way. Today’s ten year old’s are not going to buy it.
“Two year olds can make that work,” he exclaimed, pointing to a nearby smart phone. “It’s a fantastic story but we have to explain it differently,” he said.
Religious education with Mr Hook? Now that’s a class this reporter wouldn’t want to miss!