Former Late Late Show host Pat Kenny says he intends to get guitar lessons after being presented with an electric guitar by U2 to mark his last ever show on Friday night.

Speaking to the Sunday Tribune this weekend before jetting off on holidays, the 61-year-old said of all the mementoes he received from 10 years hosting RTé's flagship chatshow, the Gibson guitar gifted from U2's Edge was his most prized.

Admitting he had strummed an acoustic guitar while a student, Kenny said:?"I was more folky than electric, a kind of poor man's Damien Rice. Luckily one of my good friends who used to produce the Late Late, Bill Malone, is a pretty good guitar player, so I'm going to ask him to give me a few lessons."

The RTé star allowed himself a lie-in yesterday and spoke of his relief about getting through his last ever chat show. Having told RTE news that he was dreading the emotion that might overcome him when Friday's Late Late ended, Kenny admitted all he had felt was hunger.

"That was because I hadn't eaten since lunchtime. The great thing was because we were outside at a garden party, I was surrounded by food and could tuck in. It wasn't until I got back inside and among the crew in the green room that the real emotion took over. "

One of the high points of the programme had been an emotional interview with actor Gabriel Byrne where he had recounted how he had been the victim of physical and sexual abuse as a child and spoke of his revulsion at the Ryan report.

"I learned the facts of life when
I was being abused, I know that sounds like a paradox but that's actually what happened. It wasn't just physical abuse or sexual abuse; I'm one of many people to whom it happened," said Byrne.

With the second half of the show moving to a garden outside in RTé, a comedy skit from Après Match's Risteard Cooper and Gary Cooke stopped the programme turning into one long promotion for this weekend's Bloom Festival in the Phoenix Park

It was only towards the end of the night, when Joe Duffy briefly took over as MC, that the focus returned to Kenny who managed to keep his composure amid an endless stream of emotional tributes.

"But you do know Pat, sincerely PK, how genuinely appreciated you are by so many people? Seriously, the business you are in. I think you sometimes forget, I just want to make sure before you leave here tonight, you have that in your haversack," said Duffy.

With so many clips and tales of Pat's tenure, one was left wondering what might be ahead for the world's longest-running chat show?