As one of the biggest names in Irish broadcasting for more than 30 years, it was telling that Ray D’Arcy was never all that keen to be the centre of attention.
He was fiercely protective of his personal life and known to be reticent about giving interviews. He preferred to let his work do the talking, which is why it was so significant that news of his exit from RTÉ after 11 years would prompt an uncharacteristic outburst from the Kildare presenter, who said he was “hugely disappointed” at “how his departure … was handled”.
Such drama was atypical of a host generally happy for others to bask in the applause. He first came to attention on RTÉ’s The Den in 1990 when he took over from Ian Dempsey to play the straight man to manic puppets Zig and Zag. One of the most zany and irreverent shows ever broadcast by RTÉ, The Den wouldn’t have worked without D’Arcy’s willingness to sit back and let his colleagues soak up the acclaim. They clowned around, he laughed at their jokes – and Irish television was never the same again.
Zig and Zag would eventually leave for the bright lights and big pay cheques of Channel 4 but, up against the more performative likes of Denise Van Outen and Johnny Vaughan, they were all at sea (though they had fun roasting Donald Trump when he turned up on set). They needed D’Arcy as much as he needed them – and while they floundered in the UK, the former nightclub disc jockey took on television work with the kids’ quiz show Blackboard Jungle and then followed Dempsey to Today FM, where he fronted his own Ray D’Arcy Show.
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Even his biggest fans – if there were such a thing – would be open that he never quite set the airwaves alight. Up against the gadabout talents of Gerry Ryan on 2FM, he had to work hard to build his audience. He did so by learning to delegate and by turning a background staff of researchers (including his future wife, Jenny Kelly) into stars in their own right. D’Arcy was always at his most comfortable bouncing off his crew or inviting members of the public to phone in. Whatever it took to make him less the star of the show than its facilitator.
A born collaborator, he seemed blessed (or cursed) with the sort of self-awareness that eluded peers such as Ryan or, later, Ryan Tubridy. In a broadcasting landscape dominated by prominent personalities from Dublin, he also came to represent what many lazily dubbed “rural” Ireland. He, in fact, grew up on a council estate in Kildare town – “rustic” only if you’d never walked 10 minutes beyond RTÉ’s Montrose HQ.
Though a big name at Today FM, he managed somehow to stay below the radar. His show was comfortable background fodder for thousands of listeners, yet one of his strengths was that everything he did was so forgettable. You didn’t turn on Ray D’Arcy because you wanted your world changed. You just needed your commute to go by more quickly or to have something on while you loaded the dishwasher.
Returning to RTÉ in 2014, he put a target on his back. After decades of paying outrageous salaries to its top “talent”, Montrose’s largesse on behalf of licence fee payers was becoming a talking point.
D’Arcy could not have picked a worse moment to go back into public service. In addition to his Radio 1 slot, he presented a forgettable Saturday night chat show for four years. These gigs pushed his salary towards an eye-watering €450,000 in 2019, at which point he was the broadcaster’s second-highest-paid presenter (behind Tubridy).
His pay declined substantially after the Saturday show ended, but he was earning €250,000 as recently as 2023. In those later years, he was sometimes accused of retreating into a performative grumpiness on the radio. That he wanted to be left alone off the airwaves was well known. Increasingly, he could sound like he wanted the same when the mic was on. But he was always professional, his interviews diligently researched, his banter mercifully free of the forced hilarity that often is a feature of the modern Irish DJ.
