RTÉ legend Gerry Ryan's partner Melanie Verwoerd says she spoke to late DJ through clairvoyant

The pair began a relationship two years before the beloved DJ died suddenly in his flat in April 2010.

Verwoerd, a former South African Ambassador to Ireland, discovered his body when she could not reach him by phone that morning.

The diplomat has now revealed that she consulted a medium in an attempt to come to terms with Gerry’s death.

"Shortly after Gerry’s passing a book agent in Ireland suggested that I go and see a medium,” she confides in her new book Never Waste a Good Hysterectomy: Life Lessons from a Crisis.

“‘Look, unlike most Irish people I don’t believe in that stuff’, she said. ‘But Paddy McMahon is amazing.’

“She passed me his book Guided By Angels: There Are No Goodbyes. Over the next few nights I read his life story.

“I was doubtful but so distraught that I decided to contact him. To me it was as clear as daylight that Gerry’s big energy couldn’t have disappeared. How could he just be gone.

She added: “Even quantum physics tells us that energy never disappears, it could only charge form. So perhaps Paddy could help.”

She met the clairvoyant in Dublin, she writes.

"He explained to me that on account of his advanced age he rarely did these sessions anymore but when I called he felt ­compelled to say yes.

"’I’m a little nervous’, he confided. ‘Please know I can’t always ­connect. Sometimes the departed don’t want to communicate.’ I joked: ‘Well if anyone would love to talk it would be Gerry.’

“Over the next few hours I had the most extraordinary experience of my life.

“Paddy channelled Gerry and relayed things that only Gerry knew. It blew my mind. When I left, I was exhausted, but strangely comforted.”

Melanie also opened up about her visit to Gerry’s graveside, describing the late radio legend as the "love of my life.”

“On the day of his funeral, I had stood back as his wife and children, ­family and friends said goodbye,” she admits.

“Even though I had gone there many times, I had never felt any real connection to Gerry there. In fact, the mere idea that his body was somewhere under the icy ground freaked me out.

“Yet I knew I had to say goodbye. Not to him or our love but to the pain I now wanted to be free from.

“I walked slowly to the familiar grave site right at the entrance of the cemetery and sat down on the side of Gerry’s gravestone.

“Wary of curious looks from ­passers-by I dropped my long hair around my face and whispered ‘Hi’. I immediately felt my eyes well up.

“With the tears flowing freely, I told Gerry that I needed to be free, that I would forever love him and hoped that we would reconnect one day in another form.

“Still, for now, I had to live in this world and couldn’t do that if I was still so sad about losing him. I asked to be released from all that was holding me back.”

As she walked back to the car, Melanie said: “With every step I took, I felt a bit lighter.”