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LIVELINE: CALL BACK

Joe Duffy Image Name: Joe Duffy Description: Joe Duffy in Radio 1 studio for Liveline
Liveline: Call Back Mark Townley  story Sophie Grenham Image Name: Liveline: Call Back Mark Townley story Sophie Grenham
Liveline: Call Back Mark Townley mark-townley[1] Image Name: Liveline: Call Back Mark Townley mark-townley[1]
Liveline: Call Back Mark Townley Mark 011 Image Name: Liveline: Call Back Mark Townley Mark 011
Liveline: Call Back Glenda Gilson Glenda still Image Name: Liveline: Call Back Glenda Gilson Glenda still
Liveline: Call Back Glenda Gilson Image Name: Liveline: Call Back Glenda Gilson

Episode 3

  • Mark Townley Story

June 2008

Mark Townley first came to the attention of Liveline in 2008 when Parents phoned in to say that their daughters as young as 13 were approached on the street by sales agents from the Éire Models Agency. The girls were being asked for €300 to join the agency with the fee going towards lessons in catwalk modelling, the chance to appear in Ireland’s Next Top Model TV show presented by Glenda Gilson and appear in the Éire Models magazine which was due to be sold in Easons. Mark Townley was MD of Éire Models, the company had a turnover of €750,000.

The next day Mark Townley went on air to confirm that he is making Ireland’s Next Top Model for TV3, that he bought the Irish Patent for INTM and that his modelling magazine will appear in Easons.

Then TV3 came on air to say categorically that they have never dealt with Mark Townley.

The Patent Office came on air to say that they have never dealt with Mark Townley.

Easons came on air to say that they never dealt with Mark Townley.

Mark insisted that he is was negotiations with all these groups through third parties.

Joe asked Mark is he the same Mark Townley who appeared on BBC Watchdog and is banned from entering Wales and England because he was involved in scams there. Mark said no, you must be talking about someone else and that he will have to look into suing RTÉ to recuperate damages to his business. Mark Townley disappeared and Éire Models folded.

After Townley’s Éire Models scam he returned to Northern Ireland where he set up numerous bogus businesses and eventually Townley was charged with fraud and deception did a six month spell in prison. While in prison he converted to Islam and changed his name to Ashraf Islam.

In May Ashraf Islam walked into a police station in Hounslow, West London to confess that he wanted to kill Prince William. He produced a laptop to show searches for guns, kidnapping etc

The exact nature of Islam’s plot remains unclear as does his transformation from Northern Ireland conman to terror threat in London.

In this programme we interview model Glenda Gilson, the magazine editor of Éire Models, Sophie Grenham and Samantha Conlon, a girl who was conned out of her money and her dreams when she signed up to Éire Models.

 

 

  • Ash Cloud Story: April 2010

Everyone remembers the Ash Cloud in 2010… Irish people were stranded all over the world because of the eruption in Iceland.  No flights, big delays, frustration and fear.  Liveline covered events as they unfolded and became a sort of radio Busarus – a conduit for putting people in touch from all corners and all countries so they could try and get home.  Trucks, coaches, buses, cars, rooms for the night  –  listeners who could help phoned Joe in their droves.

Liveline Callback takes a quick look back at how Liveline became a central hub for connecting people during the Ash Cloud, and speak to Annmarie Hogan from Kilkenny who was stranded in Rome and had to resort to cooking pasta in her kettle to get by!

 

  • Postcard Reunion Story: Ivan Rooney 2007

 

In October 2007, 81 year old Ivan Rooney from Clondalkin telephoned RTÉ’s Liveline to tell presenter, Joe Duffy, he wanted to find out more about his mother. He had a birth certificate with a lot of blank spaces on it. His mother’s name was on it, but not his father’s.  Ivan said a line had also been drawn across the space for his own name on the certificate. “I have no Christian name. Now I am 81 — so I have gone through life with a birth certificate that does not really identify me.”

While he had a happy life, he remained curious about his origins and from time to time took out the certificate and looked at it. Like the blank spaces on it, there were gaps in his life that he wanted to fill.  His wife of 55 years, Olive, with whom he had three children knew he always wanted to find his mother. Sadly, Olive suffered with her health and Ivan decided to put her first. She died in 2006.

And so, with the help of his daughter Susan, Ivan began his journey of discovery at the age of 81.

His mother was 21 when Ivan was born in the Coombe Hospital. After the birth, she went to the Magdalene Asylum (as it was then called) on Leeson Street. She left the refuge in August 1927, but Ivan stayed there until he was three when he was fostered.  In 1930, Ivan’s mother left for America.  All he had when he first spoke to Joe on Liveline was a postcard sent from America in the 1930s, and some letters.

With the help of Barnardos, Ivan discovered that he had not one, but two siblings, still living in America. One year after his first call to Liveline, Ivan spoke to Joe Duffy again, on the very day the siblings met each other for the first time at Dublin Airport – Eileen (his half sister) and Doug (half brother) flew over from New York and San Francisco in 2008 to meet Ivan.  Doug presented Ivan with a lock of Ivan’s childhood blonde hair and a photograph of him that their mother had hidden in the back of an old album – nobody knew about these items until after their mother had passed away.  She kept Ivan a secret and took that secret to her grave. For Ivan, the lock of hair and photograph showed that his Mother had never forgotten him.  Bonds were forged between the siblings and their extended families, and soon, in his mid 80’s, Ivan was winging his way to New York where he visited his Mother’s grave with his new-found brother and sister.

“I never thought I’d see America” said Ivan of his visits to New York and San Francisco.

In Liveline: Callback, we meet Ivan Rooney (now 88) and his family, who tell us the incredible story of the Clondalkin man’s journey of discovery.

 

Series Overview

There have been many moments on Liveline that have made the entire country immediately stop what they’re doing and turn up the volume. In Call Back, Joe Duffy looks back at some of the standout stories on the nation’s favourite radio talk show and follows up on the most memorable for a TV audience. Each programme in this six-part series episode asks what happened after these stories featured on Liveline – and follows up on the sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes heart-warming outcomes