Gay Byrne reveals how he once turned down Paul McCartney after he asked him to manage The Beatles

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GAY'S FAB FOUR GIG Gay Byrne reveals how he once turned down Paul McCartney after he asked him to manage The Beatles
Irish TV legend Byrne made the revelation he unveiled a plaque in Dublin’s Abbey Street yesterday where the Fab Four played their only Irish
By Ken Sweeney, Showbiz Editor
8th November 2018,

GAY Byrne has revealed how Paul McCartney once asked him to manage The Beatles — but the broadaster turned the band down.

The 84-year-old made the startling revelation as he unveiled a plaque in Dublin’s Abbey Street yesterday where the Fab Four played their only Irish concerts 55 years ago.


Byrne unveiled a plaque in Dublin’s Abbey Street

Gay had been asked by organiser Paddy Murray to do the unveiling as the first man to interview The Beatles on TV which he did as host of a teatime show on the UK’s Granada TV in the 1960s.

He told the crowd he could have gotten even closer to John, Paul, George and Ringo as Macca wanted him to be their manager before they found Brian Epstein.

But the legendary broadcaster joked he might not have been rock’n’roll enough.

Gay said: ”This grey-haired loon’s claim to fame is that he almost became the Beatles’ agent. If I had become their manager.


Byrne interviewed the iconic band decades ago

“I would have been extremely wealthy, or else I would have died a couple of months later of cocaine poisoning. That would have been an unfortunate and wrong direction.”

The Beatles made the job offer to Gay when on Granada TV show Scene at 630 back in 1963.

Gay recounted: “Word came about this phenomenon that was happening in Liverpool called The Beatles, so my boss told me to check out these moptops called who were appearing in The Cavern causing riots and disturbances.

We reported it as a news story, and then someone had the idea of getting them in to play live on the programme.”

It turned out The Beatles were as impressed with Gay as he was with them.

He recalled: “I hadn’t really heard of them up until then but I was known to them as I was on the TV every day.

“I was doing this show and reading the late night news so as far as they were concerned I was a star.


Gay says he was offered a gig to manage The Beatles

In the middle of the soundcheck Paul McCartney came to me and said, ‘Would you like to be our agent? We don’t have one and we think you would make a terrific agent’.”

But Gay had to disappoint The Beatles. He recalled: “I told Paul I was up to my ears between doing four days a week in Manchester and going back to Dublin each weekend for the Late Late.

“I knew nothing about being an agent so I could not be the Beatles’ agent. I thanked them and off they went and got young Brian Epstein to be their agent solely because he sold records in his father’s shop.

“That’s how innocent they were. They reckoned that made him an expert in showbusiness.”

Gay turned up at the launch sporting a fittingly Beatles cap which he said had come in handy as he has lost hair due to his ongoing treatment for prostate cancer, first diagnosed in November 2016.

He said: “You’re lucky you are seeing some hair because with the chemotherapy I lost all my hair. I am as bald as a coot. I was doing a Ray D’Arcy on it but now the hair has come back.”


Beatles’ bassist Paul McCartney

Asked how he was doing, Gay said: “I am happy to be here but in my present condition I’m happy to be anywhere.”

However he managed to bring Abbey Street to a standstill with a funny speech about the Fab Four as he joined Lord Mayor of Dublin, Cllr Nial Ring, to unveil a plaque to The Beatles’ only Irish concerts which took place on November 7, 1963, at the old Adelphi Cinema near Arnotts on Abbey Street.

Gay was accompanied by pal Harry Crosbie who had been in contact with Paul McCartney, who sent word he would visit the plaque the next time he played in Ireland, and Ringo Starr, who also sent his approval for the plaque.

Yesterday’s unveiling was followed by a performance of Stephen Kennedy’s acclaimed play When the Beatles Came to Dublin, as well as Fab Four tunes in the Adelphi bar on Abbey Street.

The idea for the plaque came from Beatles fan and journalist Paddy Murray who attended with veteran journalist Eanna Brophy covered the Adelphi shows.

She said: “I knew instinctively that there was something special about these newcomers. Little did I realise how special.”