Updated 7.45pm
RAY D’ARCY HAS begun his new show on RTÉ Radio One, following weeks of anticipation.
D’Arcy’s first guest was fellow RTÉ presenter Gay Byrne, who spoke about his interview with Stephen Fry on the ‘Meaning of Life’ which aired last night.
Byrne kicked off the interview by saying: “Good afternoon and welcome home dear boy.”
On his interview with Fry, he said people are “getting much more excited about it than I am”.
This time we happened to have a man who is a particularly good speaker, particularly robust at expressing his views and cantankerous about it and expressive about it.
However the presenter would not give anything away about his own religious beliefs, telling D’Arcy he believed it would be unfair to people coming onto his show in the future.
“If they knew where I’m coming from they might be tempted to edit or censor their own answers before they give me an answer.”
All in all, D’Arcy’s first show went down a treat.
The programme kicked off in a fashion that will be familiar to many listeners of D’Arcy – him saying he’s unsure of how to work the technology in front of him.
“Ah, it works,” were the words he first uttered – to his surprise.
D’Arcy, who began preparing for the new show on 5 January, said he tried to avoid meeting people when he made his way back into the radio centre last month as he had been “gone 14 years” and was “a bit self conscious”.
He didn’t go in the main door, instead choosing the goods entrance. The first familiar face he saw that day was veteran radio presenter Larry Gogan.
“I could have kissed him with his lovely warm face and his big smile,” D’Arcy recalled.
He said everyone has been very friendly since he returned to his old stomping ground with Joe Duffy giving him a free copy of the RTÉ Guide and Dave Fanning offering to buy him a coffee.
D’Arcy did have one issue to get off his chest, however: namely, why soup costs the random figure of €1.02 in the canteen.
“I haven’t got around to ringing the office [to find out why].”
D’Arcy said it took him “about an hour last night” to choose the first song to play. In the end, he went with a classic:
D’Arcy told listeners signs with ‘Good afternoon’ and ‘RTÉ Radio 1′ were stuck on the walls to avoid any mistakes.
Several people were quick to wish D’Arcy and his team well on their new venture, but one old colleague took a slightly different tack:
There was also lots of cake to be had, which is always good.
The show will air every weekday from 3-4.30pm. Derek Mooney’s old slot had been temporarily presented by Marty Morrissey since December.
- Additional reporting by Michelle Hennessy.
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