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Elaine Byrne: From Pee Flynn to Big Phil and now Tubridy, we Irish don’t tolerate hubris

The ex-RTÉ presenter was almost out of the woods and en route to a return to the airwaves, but he just couldn’t take his medicine and shut up

Ryan Tubridy leaving the Oireachtas committee hearing: ‘Any sense of inflated self-worth or entitlement will ultimately be punished by public opinion.’ Picture: Rollingnews

There is a peculiar Irish expression that has determined the fate of many well-known personalities in public life, from Pádraig Flynn to Phil Hogan to, more recently, Ryan Tubridy.

The phrase “He has lost the run of himself” is a colloquialism that essentially admonishes an individual’s lack of modesty. The UCD Emeritus Professor Tom Inglis attributes our learned predisposition towards humility as something that is deeply ingrained in the Irish Catholic culture of self-denial as ...