At home with Matt Cooper

Given the popularity of his daily Today FM programme, one would be forgiven for expecting that a visit to Matt Cooper’s home in Dublin’s Rathmines might uncover rivals like George Hook and Rachael English lurking about in the garden, hoping to catch Cooper in the act of working on some ratings-busting scoop. Not so, for Cooper does most of his work in his Today FM office and has the enviable ability to go home and switch off.

He’s lived in this two-storey-over-basement house since 1997. “We used to live in Blackrock and just got fed up with the commute," he says. "Even back then it was becoming a nightmare traffic-wise. We extended the house a few years ago and we’re definitely here for the foreseeable future.”
But is it a haven of peace and quiet? “No way," he chuckles. "I live with my wife and four children, all under seven, so it’s far from quiet.”
Yet while the house shows some evidence of its young inhabitants, it’s relatively tidy. As for the comparative absence of newspapers, Matt says, “I fill the green bin fairly quickly, and I really only have time to read newspapers at home at the weekend. But when I edited the Sunday Tribune there were papers everywhere.”
Matt still contributes regular columns to the Sunday Times and the Irish Examiner and he works on these at home, on his laptop. “When I get home I have to put the kids to bed. We follow all the main stories as they develop during the day. I’m usually on top of them sufficiently to allow myself to turn off at home and I try to keep weekends totally free for the family.”
Some dogged PR people are not beyond tracking down key media people in their homes, so does Matt get the occasional visit from Frank Dunlop types with a press release in one hand and a brown envelope in the other? Emphatically not, he says.
“I don’t know anybody in the media who gets hassled at home these days by PR people - I certainly don’t."
There is a debate raging in the Cooper household about getting a dog. But while they occasionally doggy-sit for a neighbour when they’re away, the only concession to the animal kingdom at the moment is a mini-aquarium.
He tunes-in to some radio at home, but usually only while he’s getting the kids ready for school. More often, he listens to music from a CD collection that includes some of the Johnny Cash's American Recordings series .
“When I was a kid I used to like country music, but then I grew to hate it," he admits. "But I love the cover versions Cash has done of songs like ‘Rusty Cage’.”
You’ll find a good sprinkling of contemporary rock material too, including Gorillaz, Franz Ferdinand and the new Snow Patrol album. “I’d probably hear a lot of stuff on Today FM during the day, and that’s where my attraction to a particular album might start,” he explains.
He doesn’t have much time for TV. “When I get the chance, I like to watch sports programmes. And if there’s a major news item breaking, I’ll watch that or important documentaries. We prefer to watch boxed sets of DVDs. I’m a West Wing junkie, for example. So I’ll suffer withdrawal symptoms when it finishes. The Sopranos, 24 and Lost are other big favourites."
It would not be much of an exaggeration to say the house is stuffed with books, and they’re all over the place. There doesn’t seem to any filing system in operation, so presumably when a particular tome is needed it’s hard to find? “Well, hardbacks might be on certain shelves, and I try to keep political and current affairs books together, but otherwise there’s no system. It’s a time problem. When I was in college I used to read four or five novels a week, but I don’t get the time to read as much as I should, and I tend to read a lot of books as preparation for interviews on The Last Word. The last book I read for my own pleasure was John McGahern’s Memoir. Actually I bought it when he was coming in for interview last year, but I loved it. I’m also a big fan of Michael Connolly’s thrillers and I’m looking forward to the new Philip Roth novel. I’m a big fan of Roth’s.”
Cooper actually seems to have an almost Buddha-like non-attachment to material possessions. He doesn’t have a favourite object, and when he’s asked what he’d rescue from a burning house, he is equally non-materialistic. “To me, the most important aspects of my life are the people, and that’s it,” he says.
But his house does have a few paintings. “Recently,” he says, “we started to buy the odd painting here or there, maybe around the Merrion Square area. But they’re paintings we actually like and ones we can afford, so nothing too expensive. We have a few pieces by Willy Redmond. They’re quite unusual. Karen Wilson does some interesting paintings of flowers and we’ve bought some of hers. We don’t regard them as investments, but they look nice in the house and we like them. It’s as simple as that.”