He was hosting the weekly quiz show Jackpot on RTÉ television and his own programme Terry Awhile on radio.
One of Ireland’s first true celebrity couples, their wedding in 1965 was surrounded with well-wishers despite it being a wet Saturday afternoon.
They remained together until the broadcaster’s death in January 2016 at the age of 77.
Now, tributes have been paid to Helen Wogan following her death at the age of 88.
Announcing the news on his Instagram page, the couple’s son Mark Wogan said he hoped they were “sharing a vodka martini and hoping we don’t make too much of fuss”.
“Our beautiful mum left us last night after a fantastic life. From a young Irish rose to Lady Wogan, she was the epitome of style and grace,” he wrote.
“A mother, grandmother and wife, with love and kindness at her core. A strength and a belief that saw her through many of life’s trials. A sense of humour and a turn of phrase that would have you in fits of laughter. A proper lady in every sense of the word.”
Helen grew up in Dublin, on Leinster Road in Rathmines. Terry Wogan was from Co Limerick but his family moved to Dublin when he was 16.
After being educated at Belvedere College, he had a brief career in banking, before moving into broadcasting.
The pair got engaged in 1965 and married the same year on April 24, in a ceremony at Helen’s parish church, Our Lady of Refuge in Rathmines, before a reception was held at the Country Club Hotel in Portmarnock. They went on honeymoon to Torremolinos in Spain.
In an RTÉ documentary, Fr Brian D’Arcy recalled the level of interest in their wedding at the time.
“It was front page in the newspapers. It was the greatest celebrity wedding I had seen until that point,” he said.
The couple settled in Taplow, Buckinghamshire, where they spent their five decades of marriage together, and they also owned holiday homes in south-west France and in Spain.
They had four children – Vanessa, Mark, Alan and Katherine – and five grandchildren. Vanessa, their first child, died of a heart condition just a few weeks after she was born.
A fire broke out at the Buckinghamshire home in 2008 and was caught by Katherine when she heard the smoke alarm. Speaking to The Telegraph at the time, Helen said: “Fortunately there is not a lot of damage. The fire brigade were brilliant.”
While on air, Terry Wogan often playfully called his wife “the present Mrs Wogan” or “the present Lady Wogan” after he was knighted in 2005, a phrase that stuck with his audience and appeared in many of the tributes paid to her.
Despite his fame, he often spoke about his preference for spending time with Helen and his family. He preferred the time he spent at home, and on family holidays to Spain and France, instead of being in the spotlight.
In an interview with The Guardian in 2014, he said the best days of his life were spent at home: “That school days are the best days of your life is manifestly rubbish. In the end it’s nice to leave. These are the best days of my life, with my wife and my family.
“I make my wife breakfast every morning. For hundreds of years I’d get up early, head off, do the morning radio show and my wife brought up the children. I had a kind of gentlemanly existence. So I feel I should make it up to her now.”
Singer Ronan Keating was among the Irish celebrities to send condolences to Mark Wogan and his family yesterday.
“Sending love, matey. God bless you all,” Keating commented on the Instagram post.
Broadcaster Graham Norton, who succeeded Wogan as the host of the BBC’s Eurovision Song Contest coverage, first heard the news of Helen’s death while speaking to Limerick’s Live95.
“I did of course [come across the Wogans], I was very fond of Helen but especially Terry. Terry was so kind to me, he couldn’t have been nicer, especially when he decided to stop doing the Eurovision and I was lucky enough to get the gig over in the UK,” he said.