Speaking over Zoom at the RTÉ new season launch, Ryan Tubridy told reporters that his "off-the-cuff" decision to speak out about his experience of verbal abuse led to "possibly the biggest reaction" to anything he has ever done on radio.
"I had no intention of speaking about it until I heard the signature tune of the show going off and I thought, 'you know what, I think it's probably time to tell people what happened’," he explained. "As I said on the programme, I ask people to share their stories and I thought it was almost a quid pro quo."
"I hadn't written anything and I hadn't prepared anything so I spoke off the cuff. That's why it was so passionate because it came from a very sincere part of my heart because I had never experienced anything quite like it before."
On Tuesday morning, Tubridy told listeners of his RTÉ Radio 1 show about an incident whereby two men in their 20s - within just minutes of each other- verbally assaulted him.
The radio presenter said he was out walking with his daughter in Dún Laoghaire when "a young guy of about 25 or 26" uttered a homophobic slur as he passed him.
"I had two things I could do with that," he told listeners. "I could stop and ask him why would he do that or I could keep going and not cause a fuss. But to be honest with you, I think I would have let myself down if I didn't challenge him."
When questioned on what he had said, the young man repeated the slur before telling Tubridy: "I don't believe in your beliefs."
The beliefs in question remain unclear as the man refused to discuss it further in detail, squaring up to the presenter who described the situation as "getting a little menacing".
The presenter explained that he walked away then because the conversation wasn't going to go anywhere.
Unfortunately, just a few minutes later, another incident occurred whereby the presenter was accosted by a man in his early 20's who was "roaring" at him and accusing him of being "the virus".
The presenter once again tried to diffuse the situation by asking the man to explain why he was shouting, but to no avail.
"There was no talking to him, he was reeling off the points - they seem to be conversation points of people who agree with him, which is to find people in public life and blame their for all their ills."
Describing the man as "very menacing", Tubridy took his phone out to record the verbal abuse at which point the man walked away.
Surmising the situation at the RTÉ launch, The Late Late Show host insisted that he has a love for "civil discourse" but that the rationale behind such aggressive verbal abuse escapes him.
"These men seem to be deeply unhappy, so much so that they would stop somebody in the street who is with his family, and would roar homophobic slurs in their face and square up to them nose to nose."
"I felt Irish society is better than that, we are better than that" he added. "For the last two years on The Late Late Show, week in and week out, we saw the best of Irish. Unfortunately, that day, within seven minutes, those young men showed me, not the worst of Irish but the troubling side of where we are as a country."
Focusing once again on the positives, Tubridy said that the response to his radio show has been huge, with messages flooding in from those who have been bullied, harassed and shouted at the street as well as parents of young gay men and women.
Going forward, the presenter plans on investigating some of these stories on air: "We will investigate some of the stories that were sent into us, some really tough things happen to people, and get the word out there."
