{"id":338821,"date":"2026-03-10T13:32:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T13:32:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/338821\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T13:32:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T13:32:17","slug":"four-things-we-learned-from-former-rte-presenters-new-daily-podcast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/338821\/","title":{"rendered":"Four things we learned from former RT\u00c9 presenter’s new daily podcast"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former RT\u00c9 presenter Ray D\u2019Arcy launched his new daily podcast on Monday morning, following a teaser that revealed his latest move.<\/p>\n

In the trailer for the new show, an upbeat D\u2019Arcy told listeners: \u201cYou might remember me from such productions as Blackboard
\n Jungle, The Den, The Rose of Tralee, Today FM, When Dreams Come True\u2026 Well, it was inevitable. I am back with a podcast. Not just any podcast, but a daily podcast, Ray D\u2019Arcy Daily. Me with friends and family.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

D\u2019Arcy has been part of Irish life in one way or another for almost 40 years, and now brings his lorry load of experience and nationwide popularity to a daily podcast where he will give his own world view, Monday to Friday.<\/p>\n

He will also have family and friends, including his wife Jenny Kelly, Mairead Ronan, and Bernard O\u2019Shea, join him on the podcast.<\/p>\n

\"RadioRadio presenter Ray D’Arcy pictured in August 2000. Picture: Photocall Ireland.<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s episode posed the question, \u2018What do people want to do daily that they do not do?\u2019, with D\u2019Arcy hoping that people will incorporate the podcast into their daily routines.<\/p>\n

To gather some thoughts, D\u2019Arcy took to the streets with his mic to ask the general public what\u2019s something they want to do daily, but currently don\u2019t do.<\/p>\n

Some of the answers he got included: Go for a walk every day; go for a run; get up early, read a book and watch the sunrise; and get out in nature every day.<\/p>\n

Here’s what we learned from episode one.<\/p>\n

D’Arcy disguises himself in public<\/p>\n

Delving into his daily life, D\u2019Arcy spoke about visiting a caf\u00e9 last Saturday morning, where he struck up a conversation with another caf\u00e9-goer about the song playing through the speakers \u2013 Talking Heads\u2019 Naive Melody.\n <\/p>\n

He said the man beside him saw him moving knowingly to the tune, telling D\u2019Arcy, \u201cYou\u2019re showing your age.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

This struck up a conversation which got D\u2019Arcy thinking: How good would it be to \u2018pass on a song\u2019 to someone, whereby one suggests a song to someone to listen to.<\/p>\n

D\u2019Arcy also touched on his new, unintentional, disguise \u2013 a beanie and glasses, a bit like The Edge.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means that I can do what I haven\u2019t been able to do since my early 20s and eavesdrop. So, I may just take myself into caf\u00e9s and sit down and eavesdrop as the late Maeve Binchy did,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"ClickClick this image to join our female reader focus group<\/a><\/p>\n

He has campaigned to reduce road deaths<\/p>\n

D\u2019Arcy\u2019s next point of conversation on the podcast highlighted the work of Irish Times opinion writer Sinead O\u2019Sullivan, whose recent write-up questions when Ireland will declare its road-death toll a public health crisis.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Sullivan, who is passionate about road safety and who set up the website stoproaddeaths.ie, highlights the lack of joined-up statistics about road deaths in the country, making the point that you can\u2019t have good policy if you don\u2019t have the stats.<\/p>\n

She calculates the years of life that have been lost on the road, taking into consideration that the majority of those who lose their lives on Irish roads are aged between16 and 25.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, if you die at around 20 and the average life span is somewhere around 80, well then over 60 years have been lost. She [O\u2019Sullivan] says 190 road deaths in the Republic last year have destroyed more lives than prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, liver cancer, pancreatic cancer, and cervical cancer combined,\u201d D\u2019Arcy said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFewer deaths but with younger victims means more lives lost. So she calculated all those wasted years of young people who die on our roads and compared them to lives lost due to cancer, which is a public health crisis.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

D\u2019Arcy went on to read out a letter that he had submitted to the Irish Times on the issue, highlighting areas that he believes would help to improve the number of fatalities on Irish roads.<\/p>\n

Getting social media advice from Mairead Ronan<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Apprentice\u2019s Jordan Dargan with pro dancer Rebecca Scott during the live show of RTE\u2019s Dancing With The Stars. Picture: Kyran O\u2019Brien \/kobpix<\/p>\n

Joining D\u2019Arcy later in the podcast, Mairead Ronan spoke about the tense Dancing with the Stars semi-final on Sunday night, which saw Jordan Dargan miss out on a spot in the final of the show.<\/p>\n

Ronan touched on how The Traitors Ireland star Paudie Moloney is attracting a large public vote, despite being at the bottom of the judges’ vote each week.<\/p>\n

She said that he has improved each week, and touched on how he has come a long way after a back operation some years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the thing. It\u2019s not a dancing competition, it’s an entertainment show on the telly. And people need to accept that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

D\u2019Arcy went on to talk about how he has to become a social media person to promote the podcast, despite not being one to put himself out there on social media whatsoever.<\/p>\n

Ronan shared some tips and tricks with D\u2019Arcy on how to get off the ground, such as using trending audio, reels and OOTD posts, which led the pair to chat about the resale value of some clothing items, such as Levi’s, and how people are using Vinted to make some extra cash.<\/p>\n

Introducing The Little Red Mic Caf\u00e9 Quiz<\/p>\n

Before closing out episode one of the podcast, D\u2019Arcy introduced The Little Red Mic Caf\u00e9 Quiz, where D\u2019Arcy pops into a caf\u00e9 to ask a coffee drinker some quiz questions. The idea is that if they get three of the questions correct, D\u2019Arcy gets them a coffee of their choice.<\/p>\n

The daily quiz will feature as part of the podcast from Monday to Friday.<\/p>\n

The next episode will air on Tuesday morning and is available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former RT\u00c9 presenter Ray D\u2019Arcy launched his new daily podcast on Monday morning, following a teaser that revealed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60,6405],"class_list":["post-338821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music-movies-reviews-munster"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}