George Hook has hung up his mic for good and has gone back to the classroom.
The outspoken former broadcaster is now volunteering as a teacher at his old school in Cork.
Ex-rugby pundit George joked that he’d be “strung up by his testicles” if he went back on air.
The controversial presenter lost his Newstalk lunchtime gig in 2017 after making inflammatory comments about a high-profile rape trial.
The backlash saw him become public enemy number one.
But now he’s ditched media for voluntary work helping transition year students to make podcasts.
The 81-year-old quipped: “I probably would be strung up by the testicles by the females in my family... my wife Ingrid and two daughters if I ever went back into the public eye after the crap we all suffered.
“We certainly don’t want to revisit that.
“Having 50 of your profession camped outside my doorstep banging on my door.
“I really don’t want that again.”
George – who will feature in Virgin Media’s upcoming series of Eating with the Enemy, works with students at Presentation College in Cork two days a week.
He told the Irish Sunday Mirror: “I’m doing fabulous work... and I’m as happy as a sand boy.
“We call it Radio Pres but it’s not a radio station really as we make podcasts.
“One kid in a wheelchair all his life did a seven-minute podcast about life in a wheelchair. Another fella wrote a one-act play. Whilst another fella talked about what it’s like to live as a diabetic.
“They start off saying, ‘No George I can’t talk’ and then we develop. It’s fantastic.
“Very few 81-year-olds are working with 16-year-old kids, it’s an unbelievable privilege.
“The big buzz is that I’m not one of their normal teachers, they call me George, not sir as they normally would.
“I probably break all the rules too. I kind of teach like I’m a rugby coach, it’s a hands-on thing.
“What I’m hoping by doing this, they’ll be better at job interviews and better able to communicate with people if they become doctors, lawyers or whatever.
“I get unbelievable craic and then drive home.”
George, whose comments about a female rape victim caused outrage, maintains it was the ‘Twitterati’ who brought him down.
He said: “There’s a great phrase called ‘the silent majority’.
“The people who got me fired were all on Twitter.
“Ordinary good people don’t go on Twitter, or they send the right emails to the radio station and say we think George is very good, you should keep him.
“But there’s a vociferous group on Twitter who want to hang anyone out to dry who’s available.
“It was my turn that week, it’ll be somebody else’s turn the next week you know.”
The proud Corkonian feels for broadcasters who he says “cannot say boo” without being cancelled.
He said: “There is this culture thing, if they say something, whether it’s the Twitterati or whatever it is, they quite simply will descend on them. So they’re terrified of losing their jobs.
“They’ve seen me get the sack, then every week there’s something in the papers about someone doing or saying something.”
But George has embraced his retirement thanks to his love of golf and his podcast work with students.
He said: “I was very young when my father said to me, when one door closes, another door opens.
“That’s what happened.
“When you’re 81 you are calmer.
“I’m very lucky, I’m healthy by and large and I can play golf.
“The most uplifting thing that happens is, I go the supermarket or go out to dinner and I meet people and they say they really miss me off the radio or the telly.”
As to whether he believes in a higher power, he said: “I have to believe in heaven because I have to meet my mother, Anne.
“If there’s no heaven I’m not going to meet her. That’s a disaster.
“Because I treated my mother like s***.
“This woman who adored me, did everything for me, I treated her so badly.
“She never saw my success, she only saw my failures.
“I want to go up and meet her in heaven, I want to say, ‘Mam I’m ok, I made it and I’m really sorry for messing you around’.
“She was nearly 90 when she died, but in her final years, my business was going down the toilet, everything was going wrong for me.”
George ran the biggest catering business in Ireland for 25 years, employing more than 1,000 people.
He quipped: “One thing George can’t do is run a business.
“I was running this enormous business, losing money and racking up bigger and bigger debts and doing everything.
“I didn’t really get a job until I was 54 as a rugby pundit.
“I was in my 50s with a hole in the a**e of my trousers, with Ingrid keeping the show on the road.
“If I was a reasonable son, I would have gone to visit my mother or look after her. I did none of those things. I was just a sh*t.
“I just want to meet her – not a day passes that I don’t think about my mother.”
His beloved wife Ingrid who he spoke of often on air is still great 64 years after they tied the knot.
He revealed: “She’s sleeping in a separate room to get asleep, as she’s annoyed with my peeing.
“But she’s still the same extraordinary woman I married.
“In which case she has a very low opinion of me.
“We have nothing in common and we are unbelievably lucky in the three children we have. We’re a pretty tight family with grandchildren, that aspect of our lives is really good.”
As for booze, that’s more or less off the agenda.
He revealed: “The problem about drinking at all when you’re 81 is your prostate is shot, so you normally pee eight times a night.
“So Ingrid wouldn’t get any sleep as I’m hopping up and down.”
- George Hook will feature on Virgin Media One’s Eating with the Enemy to air in early 2023
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