It’s fitting that Patrick Kielty’s guests for his end-of-series Late Late Show included the leathery boy band Westlife, because a big question around RTÉ right now is whether the presenter and the national broadcaster are ready to swear it all over again.
With contract-renewal negotiations between the two seemingly in limbo – neither side has confirmed or denied whether Kielty will sign up for future seasons – there is an outside possibility that last night’s closing episode of the 2025-26 run will mark his Late Late leave-taking. Could the chatshow end up flying without Kielty? If so, might the ailing brand crash earthward?
Kielty has been a solid Late Late host since taking over from Ryan Tubridy – though he didn’t have a particularly difficult act to follow. Tubridy was television Marmite. Where some saw enthusiasm and a desire to connect with the audience, others perceived a jittery, always-on energy that, while he had your attention, was ultimately overwhelming and nerve-racking: they just wanted him to sit still for 30 seconds.
By contrast, Kielty has been an agreeably steady pair of hands – never more so than in his third year at the helm of the Late Late. The former Down underage goalkeeper got the season off to an impressive start when, in his first opening monologue, in September 2025, he addressed the high-profile end of his marriage of 13 years to his fellow broadcaster Cat Deeley, which came after the death of his mother earlier in the year, just hours after he presented the March 7th programme.
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“One of the greatest joys of hosting this show is that you’re never alone,” he told the audience. “And so to all of you who have been so kind to be my family these past few months, can I just say a huge go raibh míle. It’s one of the many reasons why walking out here is always a privilege, why being back here with you tonight truly puts flesh on my bones.”
He didn’t need to make these comments and could have pushed on as if nothing had happened off camera. It’s certainly hard to remember the last time an RTÉ presenter referred to their personal life on air. Good on Kielty for doing so and thus taking the tension out of the room at the outset.
A common complaint about the Late Late has been that, at the first sight of a global celebrity, the presenter pops off questions about how much they, the baffled A-lister, likes Ireland. Kielty hasn’t been above such hoariness. Interviewing the Britpop celeb Patsy Kensit several weeks ago, he opened by listing at length her Irish qualifications (which mostly had to do with being raised Catholic in Britain).
But he put his own spin on these sadly unavoidable cliches of Irish broadcasting when, at the start of the new series, he flew to London to interview Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell about A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, the romcom they starred in. The film has a magical-realist twist involving a time-travelling portal. That was an opportunity for Kielty to remind Farrell of a “magic door” from his childhood, presenting the duo with a photograph of Bosco.
“What is a Bosco?” Robbie wondered to Farrell. “You showed me many things – but not a Bosco.”
Kielty sat back and let the interplay unfold where other chatshow hosts might have jumped in and exhausted us with overeagerness.
He also has an assured common touch. Interviewing Chris O’Dowd recently, he got into the weeds of the comedic actor’s relationship with Roscommon underage football. This is the stuff we want from Irish television: an exchange that goes to places you’d never encounter on a US talkshow or on Graham Norton’s BBC programme. Yet it’s impossible to imagine any of Kielty’s predecessors caring about underage football. He’s the first non-Dublin Late Late anchor, and, goodness, can you tell.
As uncertainty swirls around his continued involvement, it’s significant that another high-profile chatfest is also stuttering. Unveiled with a fanfare and a half this year, Claudia Winkleman’s move from Strictly Come Dancing to a BBC talkshow slot has been met with indifferent reviews.
As Winkleman is learning, filling hours and hours of airtime with banter is harder than it looks. Granted, The Late Late Show is not always compelling TV. The horrifying truth is that a limited pool of potential guests in Ireland means another 2 Johnnies interview is always potentially around the corner. Yet the current occupant of the hot seat has made the best of sometimes underwhelming ingredients.
If this latest series has proved anything, it’s that RTÉ needs Kielty more than he needs Montrose.
