Joe Duffy revealed he was diagnosed with tinnitus in his new memoir Talk to Joe: Life, Liveline and Me.

Joe Duffy hung up his Liveline hat after 27 years behind the mic, and retired from RTÉ in June 2025.

After nearly 40 years with the national broadcaster, Joe has a number of stories to tell, and has recently written a memoir called Talk to Joe: Life, Liveline and Me.

One of the revelations he makes in the book is how he was diagnosed with tinnitus, which sees a person hear a ringing, buzzing, hissing, or other internal sounds in their ears or head when no external sound is present.

When appearing on The Pat Kenny Show, he explained: "I got tinnitus on November the 18th, 2018. A lot of people get tinnitus. Suddenly in the afternoon, I was in the gym in RTÉ with my great buddy Kieran Keenan, and I suddenly said to Kieran, 'Would you ask him would you turn off the alarm?' He said, 'There's no alarm on.'

"I said, 'I can hear this high pitched thing in my ear.' He said, 'There's no high pitched thing.' I thought it was just I had jumped too high or too low or whatever.

"And I went home and it was still ringing in my ear and it got worse and worse and worse. And I went into a complete and total panic. I cannot tell you, the panic I was in. And I've never told RTE that. I haven't."

Pat highlighted how "your ears in a broadcaster are your instrument" to which Joe explained how advice from a fellow RTÉ broadcaster helped him when first diagnosed. 

He continued: "A lot of people have tinnitus. Two things. Derek Mooney has spoken publicly on LiveLine previously about tinnitus. And he said two things.

"One, you're not going to die from it and so get that into your head quickly, because you do. I remember running around the bedroom saying I have to book myself into John of God's or St Pat's or somewhere and ask them to put me to sleep for a few weeks.

"This was over Christmas that year. Derek said, you won't die from tinnitus, but the bad news is there is no cure. There will be loads of ads saying we will cure it.

"And he said, try to stop thinking about it. Try to become distracted. Try and talk to somebody about CBT, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, to develop systems, methods, tricks almost."

So how is he coping?

"I'm OK now," he added. "But now that you made me talk about it, it'll come back in about two minutes. I'm serious. And I know because one thing I found I was talking to someone recently who got it and they were in a total panic.

"And I said, the first thing you have to do is go online, go onto YouTube, onto Spotify or whatever. There are 60000 sounds in there specifically for tinnitus. Start listening to them.

"When they start listening to them, the great thing is they become distracted. Stop thinking about your tinnitus, thinking about attacking your tinnitus. Start listening to all these different sounds until you find one. And you will.

"You will even [out] again, it's almost a placebo effect. You will find one that works for you. And every time you're conscious of your tinnitus, you have tinnitus, but it's about being conscious of your tinnitus.

"Every time you're conscious of your tinnitus, you put on that sound in your ear."

Joe Duffy's memoir, Talk to Joe: Life, Liveline and Me, is out now.

Main image: Joe Duffy when he left RTÉ Pic: Andres Poveda