Marian Finucane was a trailblazing broadcaster, the first to champion women’s issues on air, and respected for her fairness, empathy and doggedness. One of a small group of Irish people known simply by their first name, the nation mourned when she died suddenly, aged 69, in January 2020.

But John Clarke, Marian’s widower, doesn’t use her eponymous moniker – instead, he calls her ‘Finucane’. It highlights the gap between the woman so many felt they knew and the woman he loved – the real Marian – who was by turns curious, fiery, emotional, stubborn, charming and endlessly excited by life.

When John and Marian first got together, they promised each other that they’d never be boring. What ensued was forty years of conversation and thousands of miles travelled. Finucane & Me is an unexpected love story: the story of two people who ‘made a pact for madness’; the story of a never-ending search for meaning; the story of two people who lived life to its fullest.

John Clarke is the widowed husband of Marian Finucane. He now lives in Kildare, where he is building a Buddhist zen garden.