Shane’s radio career began in 1994 on a part time/work experience basis while he was still in secondary school in Bundoran. The local radio station, North West Radio, had opened up a number of years before and had nurtured Shane’s enthusiasm for the medium by allowing him to work part time during his college years on weekends and subsequently full time on his completion of college as Production Manager and on air presenter of the daily show “Goldmine”. It was here that Shane cut his teeth at all radio related jobs from producing and voicing ads, to producing and presenting programmes, arranging outside broadcasts, being engineer for them, reading the death notices (!!) and making sure mass was broadcast on Sundays at 10am from a church somewhere in the region.
Three years later, in 2000, an opportunity arose that would move Shane to the other side of the country to the nation’s capital to take up the role of Head of Production with the fledgling radio station “Lite FM”.
There he worked alongside top presenters like Liam Quigley, Mike Moloney, Scott Williams and Al Dunne, as well as under the leadership of Irish radio legend Martin Block. Shane’s interest in movies soon led to a weekly movie review slot “Film 102.2” which saw him interviewing the stars of all the latest movies, both in Dublin and on press “junkets” to London where he met and interviewed the likes of Halle Berry, Emile Hirsch, Seth Rogan and James Franco.
A rebrand of the station followed under the ownership of UTV and in March 2004, Lite FM became known as Dublin’s Q102 (which it does to this day). Shane was mainly in charge of production but also saw the implementation of backup and emergency systems in the station.
Shane soon began to produce documentaries, which would air on both Q102 and Ocean FM where he was also a part time weekend presenter.
Despite the fantastic opportunities that were available in radio in Dublin, Shane soon began to yearn for home, and following a stretch doing voluntary work for the European Surfing Championships during 2011, the decision was made to return home.
Within 6 weeks of being home in Bundoran, Shane was back on air on Ocean FM hosting “Ocean Drive” daily from 4-7pm where he remained until 2015. Here his celebrity interviews continued with The Strypes, Gay Byrne, Gavin James, the Academic and the legendary Irish childhood hero – Bosco!
Read about Shane’s other media interests here