{"id":558013,"date":"2026-06-28T07:19:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T07:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/558013\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T07:19:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T07:19:15","slug":"arena-host-rick-oshea-im-going-to-say-it-out-loud-i-have-no-self-esteem-of-any-kind-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/558013\/","title":{"rendered":"Arena host Rick O\u2019Shea: \u2018I\u2019m going to say it out loud. I have no self-esteem of any kind\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rick O\u2019Shea, the presenter of Arena, the arts and culture show on RT\u00c9<\/a> Radio 1, is sitting in a Dublin hotel talking about the \u201cdream job\u201d he secured against stiff competition from 200 other applicants. It\u2019s an inescapably sad fact that the job of O\u2019Shea\u2019s<\/a> dreams became available under the most tragic of circumstances, following the sudden death, last July, of Se\u00e1n Rocks<\/a>, the widely respected and beloved RT\u00c9 broadcaster.<\/p>\n

Last summer, O\u2019Shea was asked to present the programme for a couple of weeks when Rocks, who had fronted the show since its inception, in 2009, was due to be on holiday. Ahead of those dates, Rocks fell ill, and O\u2019Shea was called in to cover for him. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was told he\u2019d gone into hospital, I thought maybe for tests. It didn\u2019t seem serious,\u201d he says. \u201cSo I did the programme that night. It was the day he collapsed. I didn\u2019t realise any of that at the time, and by the following day they knew he wasn\u2019t coming back. And things got very serious at that point.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Shea, a genial RT\u00c9 staffer who has hosted mostly music programmes on 2FM for the past 25 years, didn\u2019t know Rocks well, but he admired him as a colleague. Although taking over in such terrible circumstances was, he says, \u201csomething I wouldn\u2019t put my worst enemy through\u201d, it was even more devastating for staff working on the show, many of whom were close friends with the late presenter. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was really conscious that I was working with a team that knew him and loved him well, some of them for decades,\u201d O\u2019Shea says. \u201cAnd they were still ploughing through the job, attempting to get a radio programme on air. In retrospect, it seems bonkers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was so sudden \u2026 It wasn\u2019t like somebody retired. For the people who work on the show dealing with that, I think they showed extraordinary fortitude and professionalism. Nobody said \u2018I can\u2019t do this\u2019 or took leave. Everybody just got on with the job.\u201d<\/p>\n

RT\u00c9 has since come under criticism for its treatment of Rocks, who had tried unsuccessfully for years to get the broadcaster to reclassify his employment position from producer to presenter. In May, his partner, Catherine Bailey, went on RT\u00c9 Radio 1 to talk about the financial implications<\/a> of this for her and the couple\u2019s two young children. <\/p>\n

In a powerful interview on Today with David McCullagh<\/a>, Bailey told the RT\u00c9 reporter Brian O\u2019Connell that the broadcaster\u2019s refusal to regularise Rocks\u2019s position had led to severe financial difficulties and an inadequate pension for his family. <\/p>\n

\"LateLate presenter Sean Rocks in the studio at RT\u00c9. Photograph: Andres Poveda <\/p>\n

What did O\u2019Shea think of that? \u201cIt\u2019s not something I want to get into,\u201d he says, clearly prepared for the question. \u201cIt\u2019s something I have very strong feelings about but not something I want to talk about in a forum like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Something else O\u2019Shea is not keen to talk about is the RT\u00c9 payments scandal<\/a> from 2023, which decimated morale in the organisation. \u201cIt is another one of those things that I don\u2019t think is helpful for me to have a public opinion about.\u201d He will only say that he was flabbergasted. \u201cI felt exactly the same way everyone else did. But that\u2019s about as far as I\u2019m going to go, because I don\u2019t want to get dragged into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Mick Heaney: In Se\u00e1n Rocks, Ireland has lost one of its great cultural championsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He is slightly more forthcoming about the scrutiny around presenters\u2019 earnings, remembering thinking years ago, when the first figures were released, \u201cOh my God. How is somebody being paid whatever it was to do a job that\u2019s roughly similar to mine? This was back when Pat Kenny<\/a>\u2019s pay was somewhere around \u20ac900,000. It seemed baffling.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Shea believes transparency around the highest earners has been useful, in that it led to pay coming down to more reasonable levels. He is happy with the current system, where the pay of the 10 highest earners is publicly disclosed each year, partly because he is \u201cnowhere close to being in the top-10 presenter pay list, and I don\u2019t think I ever will be\u201d.<\/p>\n

So how much is he earning at Arena? \u201cThat\u2019s a good question,\u201d he says, smiling. \u201cBut I\u2019m not going to have that conversation with you.\u201d Being the host of Arena has given him a \u201ca small pay bump\u201d compared with what he was earning on RT\u00c9 Gold. \u201cI think everybody wants to earn more money, but it\u2019s a reasonable amount.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 53-year-old is much happier to talk about the selection process for the Arena job. O\u2019Shea had already put his name forward for any presenter gigs on RT\u00c9 Radio 1 \u2013 he ticked the \u201carts coverage\u201d box \u2013 so when Arena came up, he was always going to be a contender. <\/p>\n

For years he has been a familiar face conducting interviews at the country\u2019s big literary and arts festivals; he has also curated other cultural happenings. He decided not to make a pilot programme as part of his application, as he was already presenting the show, something he concedes gave him a significant advantage.<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018I could have kicked up a fuss, but I was 20, and I really wanted the job. The older you get, the weirder it is\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Rick O\u2019Shea<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cI still thought there was every possibility somebody else would get it. My thinking was, they\u2019re going to be better than me. They\u2019re probably going to be younger than me. There may also have been a new way that RT\u00c9 wanted to take the programme.\u201d<\/p>\n

When O\u2019Shea was told he was among the final four he allowed himself to think he might be in with a 50-50 chance of the job. Then, in March, he got an email from his boss, Tara Campbell, the head of RT\u00c9 Radio 1, requesting a meeting offsite. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn my head it was one of two things. It\u2019s going to be good news or it\u2019s the equivalent of somebody is going to break up with you, and they don\u2019t want you to make a scene, so they\u2019re going to bring you to a public place in order to do it.\u201d <\/p>\n

As it turned out, it was good news<\/a> \u2013 \u201cone of the better days I\u2019ve ever had\u201d.<\/p>\n

To celebrate, he and his wife, Liz Lyons, a partner in a law firm, shared a bottle of Lidl champagne at their kitchen table. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Rick O\u2019Shea: \u2018I was never passionate about the idea of being on the radio\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Although presenting the programme in the wake of Rocks\u2019s death has been a challenge, O\u2019Shea is clearly enjoying the job. He enthuses about a recent Arena<\/a> show, broadcast live from the Irish Embassy in London, featuring the presenter Graham Norton<\/a>, the musician Bernard Butler<\/a> and others, saying he hoped it \u201cmeant something\u201d to the Irish arts diaspora in that city. <\/p>\n

\"RickRick O\u2019Shea: ‘I\u2019d been a music-radio presenter for 33 years. It was the same job over and over again. And it\u2019s a very lonely job.’ Photograph: Nick Bradshaw\/The Irish Times <\/p>\n

He enjoyed talking to Oscar Wilde<\/a>\u2019s grandson Merlin Holland on another recent show and reconnecting with musicians he previously interviewed early on in his career, such as Paddy Casey<\/a>, who grew up a few streets from O\u2019Shea in Crumlin, in Dublin.<\/p>\n

The broadcaster is from a working-class background. His father had a variety of jobs in the building trade, but he was unemployed for most of the recession-scarred 1980s. One of two brothers, O\u2019Shea was a bookish, nerdy child, not at all sporty and \u201ca bit of a show off\u201d, with starring roles in musicals at Drimnagh Castle Christian Brothers school, on Long Mile Road. He met his first wife, the mother of their three now grown-up children, while a student there.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Shea got his start in broadcasting as a teenager after spotting an ad in his local video store for a radio competition. \u201cThere was a big poster in the window with \u00a350,000 worth of prizes, which in 1988 was like \u00a31 million. I had no interest in radio, but I threw in an application.\u201d<\/p>\n

He got to the final and was encouraged to pursue radio as a career. A short stint on hospital radio at St James\u2019s followed, and when he went to study arts at University College Dublin<\/a> he became heavily involved with its college radio station. He went on to jobs at East Coast FM, South East Radio, Atlantic 252 and FM104.<\/p>\n

This is a good time to point out that his name is not actually Rick O\u2019Shea. So what is it? \u201cPeople can Wikipedia that if they are suitably interested,\u201d he says. \u201cI got the name with a job when I turned up at Atlantic 252 \u2026 I went in on the very first day and was told, \u2018There is your desk, and your name is on top of the desk, and we\u2019ll see you later.\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u201cI could have kicked up a fuss, but I was 20, and I really wanted the job. The older you get, the weirder it is. You\u2019d be surprised at the number of people who don\u2019t understand it\u2019s a fun pun.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n

\u2018I\u2019m going to say it out loud. I\u2019m somebody who has no self-esteem of any kind\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Rick O’Shea<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As punning names go, at least Rick O\u2019Shea is vaguely plausible, unlike the names of some of the other DJs he has shared studios with over the years. \u201cI\u2019ve worked with a Dusty Rhodes, a Robin Banks and a Sandy Beach. They are much more obvious ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

His career with RT\u00c9 began in 2001 on a late-night show on 2FM, replacing the popular music presenter Uaneen Fitzsimons after her untimely death<\/a>. <\/p>\n

It hasn\u2019t escaped him that both his first and current RT\u00c9 jobs came about following tragic circumstances. \u201cI can\u2019t pretend it\u2019s not something that hasn\u2019t occurred to me,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

He presented The Rick O\u2019Shea Show for 16 years and then a daily music show, The Gold Lounge, on RT\u00c9 Gold.<\/p>\n

As a hobby he runs The Rick O\u2019Shea Book Club<\/a> on Facebook, which he calls \u201ca safe space on the internet\u201d. It has 40,000 members, and he rules the group like a benign dictator, ejecting anybody who is nasty to other participants. <\/p>\n

For the past 20 years he has also been national patron of Epilepsy Ireland<\/a>, speaking about his own experience with the condition. Thanks to medication, he hasn\u2019t had a seizure for 16 years. \u201cI never get tired of saying that,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

He is open about the fact that a couple of years ago he seriously considered leaving his staff job at RT\u00c9, unhappy on RT\u00c9 Gold and depressed about his future at the broadcaster. <\/p>\n

He had been trying to get a foothold in arts coverage for years, a decade ago fronting two seasons of a poetry show on RT\u00c9 Radio 1. But nothing stuck. \u201cI was at a point where I got no joy at all from my job. I was tired of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"RickRick O’Shea: ‘You see, I can\u2019t even say the words out loud: I feel that I\u2019m good at what I do.’ Photograph: Nick Bradshaw\/The Irish Times <\/p>\n

Two years ago, after some serious conversations with his wife, he decided he didn\u2019t want to do radio any more. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d been a music-radio presenter for 33 years. It was the same job over and over again. And it\u2019s a very lonely job. It\u2019s just you \u2026 With a music show your choices are limited. It\u2019s \u2018Am I starting with David Bowie today?\u2019 That was it, five days a week, and I looked at my life and I wondered is that what I wanted to do with the rest of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was around this time that he got the initial call about standing in for Se\u00e1n Rocks. Was Arena a job he coveted? \u201cOh look, 100 per cent, forever. But the person who was presenting it was so good at what they did. Still, I thought it would be nice to fill in every now and then.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Rick O\u2019Shea on Solar Bones: \u2018one of most fluid, approachable books I\u2019ve read\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

So when that opportunity came along, he put any plans of leaving RT\u00c9 on hold for a while. \u201cI thought,\u2029I\u2019ll see how this couple of weeks in the summer goes, maybe see if it leads to some sort of inroads into a Radio 1 show.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Shea now has what he describes as \u201cthe single greatest job I\u2019ve ever had \u2026 There is rarely a day that I come out of my job without looking back at what I\u2019ve just done and thinking, that was great \u2013 that was enjoyable, and I think it was really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then he says something that might surprise anyone who has ever got the impression that O\u2019Shea has a great welcome for himself. <\/p>\n

\u201cOkay. I\u2019m going to say it out loud. I\u2019m somebody who has no self-esteem of any kind \u2026 I have dealt with low self-esteem for a very long time, but in this job I actually think I\u2019ve found the thing I\u2019m good at \u2026 <\/p>\n

\u201cI had a really good grounding before I came to it, and now, after nearly a year with my feet under the table, it feels as if, for the first time in a really, really long time,\u2029I know what I\u2019m doing … God,\u201d he says, his speech faltering slightly. \u201cYou see, I can\u2019t even say the words out loud: I feel that I\u2019m good at what I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

If O\u2019Shea is thriving professionally, things sound equally good on the personal front. Having children in his 20s and a marriage break-up in his 30s was sometimes a struggle \u2013 at the age of 34, post-separation, he had to move back in with his parents, to the box room of his childhood home \u2013 but he cherishes his close relationships with his now grown-up children, who are 28, 23 and 19. <\/p>\n

His elder son, Ben, works at the Department of Foreign Affairs; his daughter, Holly, is a third-level student; and his younger son, Max, has just finished the Leaving Cert.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Shea also recently celebrated his 14th wedding anniversary. He and Lyons were married at the National Gallery of Ireland<\/a>, which feels deeply on-brand for the presenter of RT\u00c9\u2019s flagship arts show.<\/p>\n

Now, with his \u201cdream job\u201d on Arena, evenings are busy until 9pm, so he is reducing his extracurricular speaking gigs and events, keen to spend his \u201csacrosanct\u201d weekends with his wife and their three rescue dogs, TJ, George and Anto. Collectively, the pets are \u201cone of the best things that ever happened to me\u201d.<\/p>\n

Before he leaves for lunch with his civil-servant son, who has recently returned from election-monitoring duties in Armenia, I ask about his tattoos. A few years ago O\u2019Shea decided to get a collection of ink on his left arm for his 50th birthday. They include a compass, because he loves to travel, a depiction of The Great Wave off Kanagawa, by the Japanese artist Hokusai, and, underneath that, the Icelandic phrase \u201cThetta reddast\u201d. Translation? \u201cIt will work out all right in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arena is on RT\u00c9 Radio 1 at 7pm on weekdays<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rick O\u2019Shea, the presenter of Arena, the arts and culture show on RT\u00c9 Radio 1, is sitting in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[75],"tags":[238666,24554,18,117,15462,19,17,70945,37011,238667,24320,143898,1181,144397,70295],"class_list":["post-558013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-bernard-butler","tag-david-mccullagh","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-graham-norton","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-national-gallery-of-ireland","tag-oscar-wilde","tag-paddy-casey","tag-pat-kenny","tag-rick-o-shea","tag-rte","tag-rte-pay-controversy","tag-sean-rocks"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116826523414291688","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558013","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=558013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}