At home with Rick O'Shea

One of the best known voices and personalities on Irish radio, Rick O’Shea first sat in front of a microphone as a teenager in James’ Hospital in Dublin.

This was back in the days when hospital radio was the natural starting point for manys a DJ. “I’m convinced no-one was listening to me at the time,” he says. “I discovered that most of the speakers in the wards were switched off”. After a spell in UCD studying English, history and philosophy, as well as running the college radio station, he opted for the broadcasting course in Ballyfermot Senior College and hasn’t looked back since. He has manned the decks at stations as diverse as East Coast Radio in Wicklow, South-East in Wexford and the County Meath based Atlantic 252 – a once hugely popular medium-wave station that enjoyed audiences of six million in the UK. Following the demise of Atlantic, he went to Dublin’s FM104 and five years ago he joined 2FM, where he’s remained ever since.
After successfully co-presenting the breakfast show – Rick & Ruth – he recently took over the coveted 2FM tea-time slot, once occupied by Dave Fanning, where he blends talk and music for three hours on weekday evenings.
“It’s the show I’ve been waiting to do for years,” he enthuses. “It’s the most fun I’ve ever had on the radio. There’s a much greater element of talk than I’ve done in the past but I still get to play as much music as I want to, including new stuff. I have a team around me which gives me far more scope to do things. We have regular live music for example and we’ve had bands like The Frames and The Feeling in recently.”
Chez O’Shea is a three-bedroom house in Blackrock, County Dublin where he lives with his wife and two young children. They finally settled in the south Dublin suburb after experimenting with both country and city living.
“We had tried living in Kildare for a while – we had friends there who did the sales pitch on us so we went for it,” he says. “It actually worked out quite well but the travelling became a bit too much. I have epilepsy and after I’d had a seizure I was off the road for a year, which meant taking the bus into Dublin. No disrespect to CIE, but it just took too long to get in and out of town. We also tried living in the centre of town in an apartment but I was constantly being woken in the middle of the night by something or other. Weirdly for someone who plays music for a living, I like my peace and quiet. Blackrock has the best of both worlds, it’s handy for work and everything is close by – shops, schools, restaurants etc and it’s quiet. And I love the fact that it’s still very much a village where I can drop into my favourite coffee shop and relax without anyone bothering me.”
Music is his living, and it goes without saying that the house is coming down with CDs, though he admits things are getting a tad out of hand when it comes to finding storage space. “The collection just gets bigger and bigger,” he sighs. “There are racks with thousands of CDs in what’s laughingly called the office. I’ve a couple of hundred DVDs in there too. I get so much stuff – it can be up to 100 CDs a week, which is much more than I could ever get to listen to. Sunday night is my night for going through stuff to play on the show and I can spend five hours at a time sitting upstairs in front of the computer.”
Evidence of his chosen profession even extends to the “smallest room in the house” where his collection of framed platinum discs, presented to him by various record companies for his part in their success, is given pride of place on the loo wall. “I thought it was as good a place as any to display them,” he laughs. “I’ve got them for Franz Ferdinand, Paddy Casey, The Streets and for my sins I have a Nizlopi ‘JCB’ disc for being one of the first to play it on the radio in Ireland.”
O’Shea is the patron of Brainwave, The Irish Epilepsy Association. He has even addressed the European Parliament on the matter and he is heavily involved in organizing Brainstock, a fund raiser which will take place on Thursday October 12 at Vicar Street. The Blizzards, Boss Volenti, Couse & The Impossible, Emm Gryner, Jape, Neosupervital, Penfold DM, Pugwash, Steve & Joe Wall plus other guests yet to be announced will play. “We’ve managed to put together a strong bill so it should be a great night.”
Funds raised will go towards Brainwave’s 2007 Epilepsy Awareness/Anti-stigma campaign, which aims to eliminate some of the prejudices surrounding epilepsy. “It’s not something I wear as a badge,” he says. “I just cope with it. If it means walking instead of driving I can live with that. I’ve been on medication since I was 16 but I only have a seizure every few years. Having said that I had one about three weeks ago. I was in a tyre-fitters at the time, I smacked my head when I fell and the next thing I new I was in the back of an ambulance. Apparently everyone in the place turned grey. But that’s what the campaign is all about, making people aware of epilepsy.”