The intimacy of radio can be captured for me in a moment.
Sitting at my desk in the RTÉ building close to the end of the day, I would often hear a timberous, warm Monaghan accent in conversation on the corridors as Sean Rocks headed to his prep meeting before broadcasting RTÉ’s nightly arts show, Arena. I always found those moments of complete recognition jarring. This is someone we as listeners know so well after all the years spent tuning in – but he is still to all intents and purposes a stranger.
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Listen: Sean Rocks remembered by writer Sebastian Barry for Today With Claire Byrne
The connection developed over years is to the voice, and unexpectedly hearing it somewhere has a transporting feeling. It is at once instant recognition and also discommoding as the host is there before you, fully realised, divorced from the frequency and static of the airwaves, where at times it can feel like just you and him. Sadly we won’t hear that Monaghan accent again in the corridors or on the airwaves, as we did so often when Sean went to spread the word of happenings in the Irish arts world with a deft command of all the disciplines he navigated.
The magic of radio is this intimacy between strangers.
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Listen: RTÉ Arena pays a special tribute to Sean Rocks
Those prep meetings with his team equipped Rocks with an iceberg of knowledge on the subject being covered or the guest he would have in front of him shortly. He had always read the book or seen the play or movie, which is no small thing, and invariably he knew the previous work and was able to tie it to the new material in an engaging way. His great skill was to wear his erudition lightly, and as a result he welcomed listeners into the daunting worlds of opera or classical music or theatre in a way that was only encouraging.
Losing Sean Rocks is a huge loss to the Irish arts and the coverage of culture in broadcast media on this island.
Once the red light was on, his main goal was to put guests at ease and let conversation flow. He had a sense for when the chat was working for the audience or when to move it gently on with another question. On the Friday before his death, he welcomed a contributor to the studio to review that week’s album releases. She talked of his characteristic mischief, how he swiveled playfully in his chair in great form as usual, ready to go live in service of the arts community he so cherished, both as broadcaster and in his previous life as an actor.
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Listen: Arena producer Sinead Egan thanks listeners for their messages
Losing Sean Rocks is a huge loss to the Irish arts and the coverage of culture in broadcast media on this island. Recently on the Six One News, Brendan Gleeson suggested a way of memorilaising Sean would be to have a segment dedicated to the arts each evening on the news, ala the sports bulletins. He suggested this would provide a tonic to the hardship of regular news stories.
We Irish are undoubtedly an artistic people, and this should be celebrated; it would be a fitting tribute to Sean Rocks, the voice of the arts on the airwaves, to have a daily arts legacy come from his sudden passing.
Revisit classic episodes of Sunday Sounds with Sean Rocks on RTÉ lyric fm here