If you could take lessons on how to be an agony aunt or uncle, surely your classroom would be the local pub or, well, a literal classroom. Pat Spillane may be celebrated as one of the best GAA players in the history of the sport, but it turns out he's just as – if not more – qualified to be an agony uncle, and he's done the time to prove it.
"I was 35 years a teacher, 40 years working in a pub and I'm married almost 32 years", he tells RTÉ LifeStyle about his starring role as one of six Agony OAPs on the new RTÉ Player show. "I'm not an old age pensioner yet, I'm two years away from that, I'm 64", he stresses. "But I felt I had a lot of life experience I could bring to it."
Alongside Mary O'Rourke, Sharon Higgins, Frank Twomey, Gray Cahill, and Matt Dodd, Pat has found a natural home as a wise elder doling out sage advice and encouragement to the millennials who write in with their problems, answering questions on everything from coming out to disliking your best mate's girlfriend.
It might seem an eclectic bunch, but it works, with all six covering every base of a young person's life. "A computer couldn't come up with six more different individuals", he laughs. "We were there for three days but had nothing in common. But we hit it off, we gelled."
Making it easier, of course, is the fact that "more than 80%" of young people's problems today are the same as they were in Pat's youth. "Where it's different is social media. I would be a novice of social media, I'd be ignorant of it."
Another shift is in dating, and ain't that the truth.
"There seems to be various stages of relationships now between seeing each other and seeing each other exclusively", Pat says.
"While we were trying to give advice, I learned so much about young people's problems and the difficulties they face but, at the end of the day, it was a lot of the same. Our answers were common sense answers and common sense is always the best answer."
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"There was only one question where we were bamboozled", he says. "It was a query from one man and his partner wanted chem sex and they were going to a sex party. To be perfectly honest, not of the six OAPs hadn't a clue. Then we asked the people working on the programme, they hadn't a clue. It was the only one we had to Google."
As much as the show was lighthearted, the OAPs were serious about the advice they shared, not wanting to be "frivolous", Pat says.
"One thing I was always good at is, my door was always open, I was amenable to youngsters. I was the shoulder to cry on, I was the person that they knew they could go to and get advice. I was always good at listening and helping out youngsters under the radar."
He's been there for all manner of people in all manner of setting, with most of his lessons coming in the wee hours.
"Working behind a bar in rural Ireland, if that doesn't give you experience in being an agony aunt, nothing will", he says. "You're dealing with one person, pouring out his heart and soul to you and the publican was the mentor, the counsellor, the person giving advice. One thing I used to always remember working in a bar was "in vino veritas" – with wine comes the truth."
But when it comes to him offloading a burden, he says he's "desperate". "Unfortunately, I deal with everything myself whether that's good or bad."
But this, he feels, is part of change too, as more and more Irish people get comfortable with sharing their concerns, problems and fears.
"We're definitely getting better, but we're a long, long, long way to go whether it's opening up about your sexuality or your problems. There is still a reluctance by a lot of people not to seek help. So if this thing can do anything, it's to say talk, ask, inquire."
Watch Agony OAPs on RTÉ Player now.
