{"id":497155,"date":"2026-05-22T08:46:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T08:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/497155\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T08:46:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T08:46:13","slug":"derek-mooney-spots-a-rat-in-the-rte-car-park-insert-your-own-joke-here-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/497155\/","title":{"rendered":"Derek Mooney spots a rat in the RT\u00c9 car park. Insert your own joke here \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just for a second, it sounds as if Derek Mooney<\/a> is going to address, if you\u2019ll excuse the inevitable wildlife-related metaphor, the elephant in the room. <\/p>\n

\u201cI must tell you about an interesting experience I had earlier,\u201d he says, chuckling, as he opens his nature show<\/a> Mooney Goes Wild<\/b> (RT\u00c9<\/a> Radio 1, Monday) for the first time since the news that he\u2019d been added to an amended list of RT\u00c9\u2019s 10 best-paid presenters. Pray tell!<\/p>\n

Disappointingly, Mooney doesn\u2019t go on to talk about how a reclassification of his role from producer to presenter catapulted him into the top-earners list, not to mention into the latest crisis to engulf RT\u00c9<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Instead he relates seeing what he thought was a rat in the Montrose car park (insert your own joke here) only to realise it was actually a squirrel.<\/p>\n

As an anecdote it\u2019s not entirely unrelated to Mooney\u2019s wildlife remit \u2013 he wonders why we find some rodent species repellent and others cute \u2013 but you wouldn\u2019t think it\u2019s the kind of material you\u2019d need to spend \u20ac200,000 or so on each year. <\/p>\n

In fairness, he also covers a wide range of topics about Ireland\u2019s natural world, from bird behaviour to whale watching, as he has done throughout his broadcasting career, and presumably his producing one too.<\/p>\n

Rather than adopt the benignly omniscient tone of the centenarian naturalist David Attenborough, Mooney takes a more casual and collective approach to proceedings. There are amiable discussions with his rotating panel of wildlife experts \u2013 in this case the zoologist Richard Collins and the ornithologist Niall Hatch \u2013 as well as contributions from listeners, as when Henrietta asks why a honeybee was pacing in circles in her Galway garden. (Turns out that the bee is unlikely to return to a hive.)<\/p>\n

Accordingly, listening to the show is akin to eavesdropping on a meeting of amiable obsessives chatting about their shared passion, a format that speaks of connection with the wider wildlife community. Mooney presides over this with conspicuous knowledge and enthusiasm \u2013 \u201cThe best place for whale watching is the Strait of Gibraltar,\u201d he informs us \u2013 even if his demeanour can also have the slightly manic cheerfulness of a gameshow host.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a persona that will be familiar to those who remember Mooney\u2019s lengthy, if lightweight, tenure on Radio 1\u2019s weekday midafternoon slot before his replacement by Ray D\u2019Arcy in 2015. The weekly wildlife show is a better fit for Mooney, drawing as it does on his area of speciality, even if it doesn\u2019t dispel doubts about value for money.<\/p>\n

\"RTÉRT\u00c9 host Cormac \u00d3 hEadhra <\/p>\n

For all that, however, Mooney\u2019s high salary seems more a symptom of RT\u00c9\u2019s malaise than a cause. At the same time, the network appears to use such arrangements for its own benefit rather than that of its employees when it suits, as emerges on Saturday with Cormac \u00d3 hEadhra<\/b> (RT\u00c9 Radio 1). <\/p>\n

The Labour TD Marie Sherlock raises the matter of how the late Se\u00e1n Rocks, long-time host of Radio 1\u2019s arts show Arena, was designated as a producer rather than a presenter by RT\u00c9, which has had significant financial implications<\/a> for his widow, Catherine Bailey.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a shabby matter, especially considering the esteem and affection with which the much-missed Rocks was held by listeners and artists alike. It\u2019s to \u00d3 hEadhra\u2019s credit that the issue gets raised on the airwaves. It\u2019s not a good look for an already battered RT\u00c9, however.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unfortunate that all this brouhaha coincides with an underwhelming six-month report card on Radio 1\u2019s relaunch last November, in the form of disappointing results from the latest JNLR listenership survey. All the main shows across the station\u2019s overhauled weekday schedule have suffered a drop in audience numbers. <\/p>\n

Some perspective is required. The dips, averaging about 10,000-15,000 listeners, are hardly calamitous \u2013 Radio 1 remains the most popular station in the country by some distance \u2013 and possibly to be expected after a makeover that introduced new presenters and altered time slots.<\/p>\n

On its own terms, the refreshed line-up has been working pretty well. David McCullagh has made Today<\/b> (RT\u00c9 Radio 1, weekdays) his own, his doleful humour and analytical acuity making him a versatile host, and if the partnership of Katie Hannon and Colm \u00d3 Mong\u00e1in on Drivetime<\/b> (RT\u00c9 Radio 1, weekdays) occasionally has an awkward chalk-and-cheese quality, they also bring rigour and nous to their slot, even if it ends at the bafflingly early hour of 6pm.<\/p>\n

\"BroadcasterBroadcaster Oliver Callan. Photograph: Bryan Meade <\/p>\n

Most notably, having gone off the boil somewhat, Oliver Callan <\/b>(RT\u00c9 Radio 1, weekdays) is bubbling away nicely again \u2013 as well he might be, given the admission of RT\u00c9\u2019s director general, Kevin Bakhurst, that the presenter-cum-impressionist receives an additional payment for his satirical series Callan\u2019s Kicks. <\/p>\n

But Callan is performing well in his chatshow role, too, gauging the mood astutely as he toggles between celebrity chats and more ruminative conversations.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0David McCullagh is a drawler whose sensitivity training needs a tweak, but it worksOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He\u2019s wittily deferential towards the jazz venture of the Hollywood star Jeff Goldblum, comparing his guest\u2019s speaking voice to a double bass and his singing one to a cello, while palpably enjoying the irreverent company of the comic actor Dawn French. <\/p>\n

But he also sounds genuinely interested in exploring the religious faultlines of the past, as he hears the author Julie Parsons describe her life as a Protestant teenager in 1960s Catholic Ireland: \u201cThe Irish we were wasn\u2019t the Irish that everyone else was.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Jeff Goldblum: \u2018Imelda May is one of my favourite people on Earth\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Shifting seamlessly between such different guests isn\u2019t as easy as Callan makes it sound. Mooney, for one, never quite mastered the art during his chatshow-host days.<\/p>\n

But, for all that, the sum of the parts in Radio 1\u2019s schedule is somehow less than the whole. Perhaps it\u2019s because audiences are still getting used to the changes. But just as the latest pay controversy at RT\u00c9 is more likely to elicit jaded eye-rolling than apoplectic outrage among the wider public, so too loyal Radio 1 listeners may feel less inclined to stay faithful to a station if it appears to take them for granted.<\/p>\n

Certainly, the decision to replace decades-old theme tunes with a generic sound across the station\u2019s output seems like a corporate answer to a question that neither audiences nor staff were asking. Even as the new Radio 1 jingles portentously trumpet about RT\u00c9 being \u201cyour public-service media\u201d at every opportunity, the national broadcaster\u2019s actions give off the opposite impression, undermining the work of its hard-pressed personnel, regardless of whether they\u2019re presenters or producers.<\/p>\n

Moment of the week<\/p>\n

Multiplatform sports juggernaut it may be, but Off the Ball<\/b> (Newstalk) also yields engaging moments for the general listener, as when its host John Duggan talks to the footballers Eoin Doyle and Chris Forrester on Saturday. Between analysis of the FA Cup final, the two players share anecdotes from their time with English and Scottish soccer clubs. <\/p>\n

Forrester talks poignantly about struggling with homesickness, as well as recounting a cautionary tale about the perils of learning to cook. \u201cI nearly burned the house down trying to make a stir-fry,\u201d he says, recalling how he threw a flaming wok out of his apartment window, mercifully not hitting anyone: \u201cIt was like a meteor.\u201d It\u2019s that rare occasion when a footballer is happy to miss the target.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just for a second, it sounds as if Derek Mooney is going to address, if you\u2019ll excuse the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[75],"tags":[46359,70293,24554,212041,18,117,19,17,49975,16036,116497,5287,63969,1181,70295],"class_list":["post-497155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-colm-o-mongain","tag-cormac-o-headhra","tag-david-mccullagh","tag-derek-mooney","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-katie-hannon","tag-kevin-bakhurst","tag-marie-sherlock","tag-newstalk-radio","tag-oliver-callan","tag-rte","tag-sean-rocks"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116617359294227409","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}