Dáithí Ó Sé has been a familiar face on our TV screens for almost 25 years, and he remains one of the country’s most loved presenters.
The Kerry native is Goss.ie’s Spotlight On cover star for March, and in this exclusive interview he opens up about his longstanding career, family life, his reaction to the infamous RTÉ payments scandal, and so much more.
The 47-year-old has come a long way since his early days as a weather man on TG4, and is best known for hosting the Rose of Tralee, and RTÉ’s Today show.
While Dáithí was clearly born to be on TV, he had “no aspiration” to be a broadcaster, and originally planned on being a teacher when he stumbled into the world of entertainment.
While his career as a presenter was accidental, Dáithí quickly fell in love with the buzz of being on screen – but it took a long time to get to where he is today.
Dáithí spent years doing gigs up and down the country “for a couple of quid” before he started landing bigger opportunities like appearing on Charity You’re A Star in 2006, and RTÉ’s Celebrities Go Wild in 2007.
Off the back of that, Dáithí landed a spot as a mentor on The All Ireland Talent Show, which lead to him being announced as the brand new host of the Rose of Tralee in 2010, succeeding Ray D’Arcy.
That same year, the Kerry native started hosting The Daily Show with Claire Byrne on RTÉ One, until the programme was axed in 2012.
The series was ultimately replaced by RTÉ’s longstanding Today show, which Dáithí has been co-presenting with Maura Derrane since November 2012.
Now in its second decade, the Today show remains one of RTÉ’s most popular programmes, reaching viewers of all ages across the country.
Work life aside, Dáithí has been happily married to former New Jersey Rose Rita Talty since 2012.
The couple currently live in Galway with their son Mícheál Óg, sweetly nicknamed Ógie, who was born in 2014.
In this exclusive interview, the 47-year-old shares the secret to his happy marriage, balancing his busy work life as a husband and father, and how he dealt with his recent cancer scare.
Dáithí also opens up about his relationship with his “work wives” Maura Derrane and Kathryn Thomas, and candidly shares his thoughts on the RTÉ payments scandal, and how he plans to “rebuild that trust again” with the public.
Read our full interview with Dáithí below:
So Dáithí you have been in the industry a long time now, but some people may not know how you started out. Could you take us back to the beginning and explain how you first started out in the industry?
“Do you know it’ll be 25 years in September? I was 23 when I started on TV first, which is kind of strange. Now I had no aspiration to be on television, it wasn’t even on my radar to be on television, so it’s kind of strange really when you think about it.
“My plan really was to become a teacher, and I just finished a degree in History and Irish, and the plan was to go on to do another course to become a qualified secondary teacher in the subjects of History and Irish.
“I was working on the boats out to the Blasket Islands during the summer, that was my summer job for about four or five years, and this person told me that they were looking for presenters who had good Irish to go on TG4 to cover weekend shifts on the weather. And I was there saying ‘what do you mean, like, go on TV?’ They said ‘yeah, we’d kind of train you up.’ So I said this sounds interesting. It was more bizarre than interesting, to be honest with you.
“And I was coming to the end of the summer, and the course that I wanted to do I didn’t get, so I was going sub teaching for the year. So I said, you know what, I’ll head up to Galway just to see what this is about. And the following weekend they put me on air doing a piece to camera saying what was coming up later on on the schedule. So that’s really how it happened. I don’t know how it took off.”
“So I was working as a part time teacher, when you start out teaching the pay isn’t great, so that had to be supplemented by work at the weekend. And that work at the weekend happened to be on TV. And I got weekend work there, and then the following year a full time job came up and I went for it and that’s how it all began.
“I have to stress, like, if you asked me when I was 22 would I have a job as a TV presenter or would I go to the moon first? I’d have probably backed myself to go to the moon! I find myself looking back now, 25 years later, going ‘Jesus that was crazy’.
“You can’t underestimate like there was a load of hard work after that, up and down the country doing gigs for a couple of quid. And then I was full time on the weather on TG4, I was doing different gigs, and then it started to pay off then. But it took a long time, like it took I’d say almost ten years to get where I wanted to be.
“IT TOOK ALMOST TEN YEARS TO GET WHERE I WANTED TO BE”
“I left TG4 in 2010 after eleven years, and I just had a great time there, but they had allowed me to do other things as well, which is really good. I did a show called Charity You’re A Star, which was for people who were kind of known.
“Now, the irony is that I wasn’t really that well known. If I’m being honest, I was probably the least well known going into it. Because you had John Aldridge the soccer player, Kathryn Thomas was there, there were people from Fair City, there were people who were a lot more known than I was. But I did that show in 2006 and then went as far as the semifinal.
“And then after that, then you’re put into a different league altogether of how people see you and how people know you. And then off the back of that two years later, I did a show called The All Ireland Talent Show, where I was a mentor and a judge on it. So that ran for three years. So that fed into the Rose of Tralee, which came at the same time as The Daily Show, which turned into the Today show. So that all happened around then.”
You’ve been hosting the Rose of Tralee since 2010, which is obviously a really long time. Is it still as exciting as it was when you started?
“Ah it is! Like the Rose of Tralee is great because it only comes around once a year. So if you were doing a show like that every week, it might lose some of the charm. But the fact that it comes around once a year, the fact that it’s down in Kerry, the fact that it means a lot to me, the show itself and where it’s based, coming out of my home county. So that always plays a big part in it.
“There’s always a good feeling there. There’s always a feeling that the young fella is coming home as well. Not that I call myself a young fella now, I’m kind of like a drunk uncle at a wedding at the Rose of Tralee. But my main job is to make sure that the Roses all feel safe down there and on stage as well, and to get the best out of them. And that’s really my job.
“But listen, I’m the least important person down there. It’s about the Roses, it’s about their family and it’s about the community as well. So when you put it into that context, it’s an easy gig to do.
“THE ROSE OF TRALEE MEANS A LOT TO ME”
You’ve also been hosting the Today show on RTÉ since 2012, and it remains such a popular show to this day. What do you think the secret to its success is?
“Well, I think one of the secrets to the success is that a few years ago we decided to make the show a lot lighter, because in the events of what was happening during COVID, and then the war in Ukraine, and now what’s happening in Gaza, people tune into us and we’re kind of a safe place. We’re like a warm blanket around you.
“Listen, the news, they report, they do what they do. That’s the job they have. They do it very, very well. We don’t have to be that serious. And people come into us to get away from all that and to have a bit of a laugh, to have a bit of fun and a bit of madness. And I think the thing with the Today show is you don’t know what’s going to happen next. As in a live show like that, it’s different from a show you can stream, it’s different from a show that’s going to be on at 8 o’clock that’s recorded during the week.
“This show goes out live, and the surprise element of ‘Jesus, that lad from Kerry could say anything or could do anything’, is always a good thing, you know, it keeps people on their toes, it keeps people interested. And one of the reasons why the Rose of Tralee is so successful is that it’s a live show, and anything could happen.”
You have been working with your co-host Maura Derrane for a large chunk of your career, are you guys actually good friends in real life?
“Yeah Maura and I knew each other relatively well, I think, before we started working with each other. Maura and I have always had a fantastic work relationship together, and a personal relationship as well.
“We always got on really well and we’d always shoot the breeze, we’d always bounce things off each other, and we know that we’d have each other’s back as well, which is important when you’re working with somebody like that all the time as well.
“And we’ve got to this stage where we don’t take each other too seriously and we can bounce off each other, we can say things to each other that you might necessarily say to other people, which is always a good place to be.”
“Maura and I have always had a fantastic relationship”
And speaking of work wives, you found a new work wife in Kathryn Thomas last year when she joined to host the Rose of Tralee. So how did you find that? Like having a co-host for the first time?
“Yeah, I suppose it was strange. First of all, I thought there was something wrong. So I asked the bosses, I said ‘okay, have I done something wrong here?’ And they said ‘No, not at all. The figures are very strong’, which is one of the things they’ll always look at.
“So it was just about adding to what we had I think, that was their thinking about it. So they said ‘what do you think of that?’ and I said ‘well, I just need to think about this, you’re kind of landing this on me’.
“So went off and thought about it, and then they said we’re looking at Kathryn Thomas, and I said ‘I know Kathryn Thomas for over 20 years, she’s a good friend of mine’. And so then we decided okay we’re going to make this work, and we made it work.”
And do you think she’ll be back next year then?
“Oh yeah! I haven’t been chatting to her in a while, but she will be back. Again, I have known Kathryn for a very long time and we have always got along really well. When myself and Kathryn hit the town, stand back, it’s going to be dangerous you know.”
I know the Rose of Tralee is very close to your heart, but it has faced a lot of criticism in recent years with people saying its outdated. What do you think of the criticism towards it?
“Well, I just think when it’s something that big people tend to throw things at it, which is fine, everybody’s entitled to their opinion, and I don’t say that flippantly. Like I said, if you don’t like it, that’s fine, 100%. I’m not going to change your mind. I’m not even going to try to change your mind, because that’s not my job.
“But it’s like the GAA. The GAA is a huge organisation, people are always throwing stuff at it, but that’s part of the process. But saying that the Rose of Tralee is out of date is kind of out of date in itself, because the Rose of Tralee has moved with the times. There was a time where you couldn’t be married. There was a time when you couldn’t have children. Now it’s open to trans women.
“I don’t know what else the Rose of Tralee has to do to prove themselves to certain people. And I think if they changed the rules upside down for certain people, it wouldn’t make a matter any different. So you have to stay true to what you believe in. For me, it’s a celebration of Irishness, it’s a celebration of Irish women.
“It’s also a celebration of what we’re doing in Ireland at this moment in time in society, like in 2024. For example, if you were back in the 1970s and said there was a trans woman in the Rose of Tralee, people mightn’t even have a fuller understanding of what a trans woman was at the time.
“So now, in 2024, if there’s a trans woman there, she will be welcome up on stage just as equally to everyone else. And that’s a great place to be for society and for the Rose of Tralee as well. So to say that the Rose of Tralee is out of date is wrong, in my opinion, you might have a different opinion, but that’s mine.”
“saying that the Rose of Tralee is out of date is kind of out of date in itself”
“It’s an available target, that’s what it is, and people out there look for targets to throw things at. But it’s a reflection on them more than anything else. Now if you don’t agree with it, that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that.
“But sometimes if you’re really having a go at something without understanding the whole thing, that’s when you kind of go, okay, hang on a second here. We’ve just lost what we were kind of going for here. Getting angry about things, no matter what it is, without having a full understanding of what it is, creates its own problems.
“And again, it’s an available target and people will throw things at it. But listen, it’s been there for over 50 years and it’s as strong as ever. So that’s a testament to where the Rose of Tralee is at the moment.”
And like you said, you’ve been in the industry over 20 years now, and being a well-known face in Ireland can obviously attract some negative attention personally as well. Have you experienced any trolling yourself online, or do you count yourself lucky?
“No, I think I’ve been lucky enough. And what people do say about me, I don’t tend to read it, I don’t buy into it. If people don’t like me, I have absolutely no problem at all with that, honestly, as in it doesn’t affect me. I think if social media was there maybe 25 years ago and I was starting, it might have been different.
“But I’m at a stage in my life that I’m just happy within myself and I know right from wrong. And I know that, again, I’m an available target for people, like everyone who is in the public eye. But there are two sides to it. Like, there’s what they think about you and what they say about you, and then there’s how you take that on board.
“And this is the important part. And it’s the same thing when it comes to people in secondary schools who are in their teens, and when it comes to people saying things about them that aren’t really nice. So there’s two sides of this, what they say about you and how you take on board, and it comes down to resilience and to building that as well.
“If people don’t like me, I have absolutely no problem at all with that”
“Like, you can call me whatever you want, right, you can say whatever you want, and I actually won’t give a crap. And I don’t mean that flippantly. I think people who say things feed off your reaction. They feed off you being weak. They push you down to elevate themselves in their own mind, but they’re not doing that at all. They’re only feeding into whatever void is in their own life.
“So it’s up to us to be strong, to go ‘actually, yeah, you can say whatever you want, but it actually just doesn’t bother me at all’. It’s like a bully. Like a bully keeps poking, poking and poking and looking for a reaction, and after a while, when they don’t get any reaction, they move on to the next victim. So you just have to make sure that you’re not that victim and that you just have to stand tall and strong and say, actually no, I don’t agree with you. You can have that opinion, but fine, off you go.”
And obviously you’re known as the chatty Kerry man from the telly. Do you feel like you have to act a certain way when you meet people out in public?
“No. The vast majority of people that come to talk to me, they’ll say hello, they’ll have a bit of craic, and they come with a big smile. And you know what? Isn’t it a mighty thing to be able to do that, to be able to talk back to them?
{Because I think a lot of us, we have our heads stuck in our phones all the time now. And outside of everything to do with that, there’s nothing nicer when somebody comes up to you with a smiling face to say ‘hello, how are you doing? I watched the show in the evening’. We have great old fun. And you know what? Isn’t it great just to engage with those people.
“If we don’t have our viewers, like we’re not worth a fiver without the people who watch our show. See what’s happening in RTÉ at the moment, that all has to go to the side. It’s all about the audience. If we don’t take care of our audience, we’re not worth a fiver.”
I couldn’t interview Dáithí without asking him about the current situation in RTÉ.
The broadcaster was plunged into chaos last summer when it was revealed that Ryan Tubridy’s earnings had been publicly understated by €345k over six years – sparking internal and external reviews of the company’s finances.
The scandal resulted in the resignation of a number of RTÉ’s key staff members – including former Director General Dee Forbes, and former Director of Strategy Rory Coveney.
While RTÉ remains under the microscope, and the new Director General Kevin Bakhurst is working on damage control, I asked Dáithí to share his thoughts on the scandal.
And speaking of RTÉ, it’s obviously been a huge topic of conversation over the past year. What was your reaction to the payments scandal when it came out last summer?
“Yeah, we were all shocked and surprised really, to see what was happening. But again, they’re trading at a different level to us. Like we are on the ground, we are the ground troops here, we are the people making the TV programmes. We are the people facing the audience all the time.
“So all I can say about that is, I hope it’ll be sorted soon. It will be sorted. I think there’s a good man at the top, and it’ll take time to get sorted. It’s playing out in public at the moment and everybody’s getting frustrated about that. We are frustrated about that, but we just have to leave that to get sorted and get back to making TV programmes, making radio programmes, and being a public service broadcaster. That’s what it’s about.
“Again, it goes back to we are nobody without our audience. We’re not worth a fiver, as I said before, without that audience as well. So they’re trading at a different level. That will have to be sorted out. But the ground troops, we’re going to have to be there, we’re going to have to face the public and rebuild that trust again back to where it was. And I believe we can do it.”
“we’re going to have to face the public and rebuild that trust again… And I believe we can do it”
I know there has been a lot of anger towards RTÉ in general, and anger aimed at talent for not disclosing gifts etc. Have you faced any backlash personally over the situation?
“No thankfully, not yet. But people see us as the face of RTÉ, so this is one of the problems. And even though the problem doesn’t lie with us, we are the people that you know. So that can be frustrating for people as well.
“But listen, we’re just going to have to plough on. We’re just going to have to plough on until it gets sorted. And it will get sorted. It’ll take time, and bit by bit we are getting there and we’re just going to have to go with it.
Moving on from the RTÉ stuff, you won a lot of praise for opening up about your skin cancer diagnosis last year. What made you decide to share that story?
“Well, it was more so decided for me. I got a call from one of the newspapers to say ‘I hear you had a bit of a scare when it came to skin cancer’. And I said, okay, that’s fair enough, but it’s very strange I hadn’t told a whole lot of people about it. But anyway, it got out.
“So there’s two things you can do with it then when the story is out, you can deal with it and talk about and turn it into something positive as opposed to anything else. So, yeah, about this time last year, I had a little lump on my forehead, and I thought it was an ingrown hair because it’s where an ingrown hair would be.”
“Anyway, this wasn’t going away. So I get my bloods done every year, and I asked my doctor to have a look at it. So the doctor said, look, we’ll send you down to a skin specialist just to make sure everything is okay. So I went down to the specialist and she told me straight away what it was. So she said I had skin cancer, and I said ‘Jesus, I didn’t expect that’. So anyway, she said look we’ll deal with it. She said you can do a biopsy and get it tested, or you can take it out and get it tested.
“So we decided to take it out., and she had to cut into the kind of muscle over my eye as well, just to get it all out to make sure that she got everything. So it came back that it was cancerous, but she got the whole thing out and she said, go out and enjoy your life. So there was three inside stitches, and there was six on the outside as well. So, yeah. Got a bit of a fright.”
I can imagine it was a scary time for you all, you and your family.
“Yeah, but do you know what it is, you can sit down there and feel sorry for yourself, or you can actually sit up and say, okay, we’ll get this done, we’ll cut it out, and we’ll move on with life. And that’s the way I dealt with it.
“But what I didn’t want to do was to catastrophise it, that it was anything like a life threatening cancer. But also skin cancer can be very dangerous, and it can be fatal. So what I didn’t want to do was catastrophise, but what I didn’t want to do was downplay it either.
“So that’s why I was kind of saying, look, everything was fine, 100%. But if you do come across something, please get it checked. And the only one thing I’d ask and to make sure that goes into this piece as well, wear factor 50. Whether it’s a lovely day, whether it’s a cloudy day, whether it’s a rainy day. Every day, factor 50. So that’s what I do every day now.”
Dáithí first met his now-wife Rita Talty when she represented New Jersey at the Rose of Tralee festival in 2008, when he was acting as a judge.
The pair kept in touch over Facebook, and two years later they met up in New York when Dáithí was sent over to the US to film a show for TG4.
The couple tied the knot at St Mary’s Church in Dingle in the summer of 2012, followed by a reception in Tralee’s Carlton Hotel.
Two years later, they welcomed their beloved son Michael Óg, nicknamed Ógie.
I know you’ve been married to your wife Rita since 2012. What do you think the secret is to your happy marriage?
“That’s a good question! But you know what? Life is busy. And between work, the young fella, his activities, his activities are three times Rita and mine put together. And you know what? We just get on with life, and we enjoy the simple things.
“We enjoy hanging out at the weekend. We enjoy going back to my family in Kerry. We enjoy going to America during the summer to spend time with Rita’s family.
“We just enjoy the moment, I think. And that’s what it is. And we get on with life. I think that’s part of the secret.”
“We just get on with life, and we enjoy the simple things”
And you became a dad to your son Ogie in 2014. How do you think fatherhood changed you?
“Ah sure fatherhood changed the whole thing. He’ll be 10 now on St. Patrick’s Day, and you know, your whole reason for being here changes. Do you know what I mean?
“For example, you could go through life going ‘ah sure we’re going to work, we go out partying, we go away for a weekend, and then the young fella comes along, and it becomes all about him. It becomes about the family and him, and to make sure that everyone is okay.
“But one of the main things I learned, really, is that I used to take some stuff home from work in my head. And then once I come home and he’s there, and I lie down next to him, I forget everything, I forget all my troubles. All my troubles are left outside the door. And that’s a fantastic thing.”
And do you think he’s a chip off the old block? Do you think he’ll follow in your footsteps and get into TV?
“Well, he could yeah. He looks very like his mum, but he’d have few of my traits as well. He likes putting movies together, himself and some of his buddies, they film everything.
“They edit them as well, like he’s only nine years of age! So it’s unreal. So you’d never know, there could be a filmmaker in the family yet.”
And did you guys ever consider having another baby? Or is that not something you guys wanted?
“Ah listen, we were happy with what we have, and it’s important to say that as well. Like when you get engaged, and people are always like ‘oh when are you going to get married? When are you going to have a child? When are you going to have the second, third, fourth and fifth?’
“I think you need to stop and kind of say, okay, look at what we have. And we’re happy with what we have.”
And your family obviously lives in Galway, but your daily work is based in Cork. So how do you balance the busy working life with being a good husband and a good father?
“Well, I travel up and down 2 hours from Cork, so I travel up and down during the week. And then I stay one night a week as well. But then I’m off all weekends just hanging out, so it’s just trying to find a balance, because we have to go to work, we have to pay the bills. Do you know what I mean? It’s as simple as that.
“And we just go do it. And again, we get on with life. Don’t think about it too much. Go to work, come home, spend as much time and make sure the time we’re spending is quality.”
You’ve landed some huge opportunities since you were a weatherman all those years ago on TG4. So what do you think is the highlight of your career to date?
“The highlight of my career? Well, I suppose the Rose of Tralee would have been a big one. I think the first one of them, and to be still there is a good one. And the Today show, I think I was particularly proud of what we achieved during COVID, we were there for people when they couldn’t leave their homes, particularly older people as well.
“I think we did really well there as a show and also as a public service broadcaster. I think that’s what we were there for. That’s one of the reasons why we were there, just to make sure that we were there for company for people who couldn’t get out meeting other people.
“So I think that period in Covid, when the Today show changed into a very kind of happy and warm place. And I think we are only realising that now when we’re meeting people who say ‘my mum and dad couldn’t leave the house because they were cocooning and they were watching you on the telly…’
“I think that was probably the proudest thing, actually, out of all the Rose of Tralee and all the trips to America with TG4, the All Ireland Talent Show… I think being there for people during COVID probably would have been the high point.”
“I was particularly proud of what we achieved on the Today show during COVID”
And do you have a particular low light?
“Not really. I was always lucky with all the stuff I’ve done. Like I was doing racing for TG4, I did all the American trips for TG4. Like I was on the All Ireland Talent Show as a judge for three years, I was in Charity You’re A Star, I have the Rose of Tralee, one of the biggest gigs in the summer.
“I do the Fleadh for RTÉ, I do a New Year’s Eve show for TG4. I do other sit down chat shows for TG4, where it’s me and another person. So I’m getting to do it all, and I have been for the last while. And to be able to say that in TV these days, I think is a great thing. So lows, not really to be honest, I’ve been very lucky.”
You’ve been in the industry almost 25 years, why do you think you’ve lasted so long?
“Well, I think if you’re in any way fake at all, people can see it. And if you’re going out there trying to be somebody else or like somebody else, people are going to see it. They don’t like that. So I am who I am, and it seems to work for me.
“Now there’s a lot of hard work in it as well. Again, those earlier years in TG4, like you’re doing a lot of the groundwork there and you can’t underestimate that. I still maintain the faster you hit towards the top of your peak, the faster you’re going to come down.
“It’s like being an overnight sensation. You’ll be famous for 20 minutes and that’s it. Then it’s all over. But anyone you look at, anyone who has built their way up slowly all the way up, and I still don’t think I’m at the top of my game.
“I still don’t think I’m at the top of my game”
“And particularly with social media these days, you can go to the top very fast, but trying to stay up there can be hard. And it’s not like you’ve nothing to prove, right? You have nothing to prove to other people, but you do have something to prove to yourself all the time, which is always a good thing.
“Like, I remember reading AP McCoy, he was a champion jockey in Britain for 20 years, and he rode a horse for a two euro race, if you like, in a market race one time. And he didn’t win the race. And all he wanted to do, now this man had nothing to prove to anyone for a long time, but all he wanted to do the following day was to get out on that horse and win the next race. And it’s to have that mentality.
“And when I read his book, it just really kind of resonated with me going, yeah, that’s what I’m like as well. There are days I’ll come off the Today show thinking, there’s not a day that I’d be complacent, that I can’t do something better.
“Now, the majority of the time I come off and I won’t even think about it. But there are days where I go ‘I could have done better with myself there’. And I will want for the next show to come the following day, to come out to prove myself again, but to myself, not to anyone else, only to myself.”
And you seem to be very content in your career right now, but I know you said you still feel like you’re not at the top of your game. Is there still something that you’re hoping to achieve, like a specific goal?
“No, not at all. But the reason why I stay away from that phrase of being at the top of your game is because if you’re at the top of your game, there’s only one way after that, and that’s down, right? So I’m refusing to look at it like that.
“So I don’t know when I will be at the top of my game. I think you’d only realise you’re at the top of your game when you’re on the way down and you realise it’s behind you.
“But there’s no gig that I really want to do. There’s no gig that I said, ‘You know what? I’ll drop everything for this’ – unless somebody came to me with something that really interested me.”
I know you previously said that you would have gone for The Late Late Show if you had been offered it. Could you see yourself replacing Patrick Kielty if that was put on the table?
“I wouldn’t even answer that until it was a reality. But I think Patrick’s doing very, very well. I think he’s doing very well, and I think he’s been around for a good while. Patrick’s a really great guy.
“I met him after the All Ireland football final last year by pure fluke, and we sat down for a few pints together. I’m meeting up with him on St. Patrick’s Day as well because he is the grand marshall of the parade. So, no, he’s going to be there for a long time and he’s doing a great job.”
And I’m sure the producers of Dancing with Stars have come knocking on your door many times. Would you ever consider doing it?
“Yeah they have! I have considered doing it, but it’s just a time thing. It’s just a thing where I’m living in Galway, working in Cork, and the shows in Dublin.
“We tried a long time ago to try to square that circle, and it just wasn’t really possible because they’re talking about doing 10 or 12 hours training a week. So really it just wasn’t possible logistically.
“It’s a show that I love watching, but it’s a show that if I was going to do it, I’d start training the year before to get in some way fit, because Jesus the way that some of them dance on there. It’s going to be interesting to see who will win it this year.”
You have been working for RTE for such a long time now, but would you ever jump ship for a show on Virgin Media?
“Well, it would have to be a huge show, because I’m actually very happy. But more importantly to being happy, I’m content on where I am at the moment, and that’s a good place to be.
“So when you’re content in something, you don’t even think outside of anything else.”
So I’m going to wrap it up with my final question. I know you said you’re very happy with the way life is at the moment, but where would you hope to see yourself five years from now?
“In the same place. Content and happy, that’s all I want to be in life.
“People focus on happiness all the time, but you can’t be happy all the time. It doesn’t exist. Well, sorry, I shouldn’t be telling people what to do, but content is where I want to be.
“Because when you’re content, you’re just in that place. You’re in the moment, and that’s a good place to be.”
