\u2018I\u2019ve retired from my radio work and gone back to performing,\u2019 Ronan explains.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018I have been performing here and there over the last 20 years or so and when I gave up the radio thing, what I wanted to do was to become a performer again and a singer.\u2019<\/p>\n
He\u2019s already been touring with a showbands show, Reeling In The Showband Years, and there will be more of these later this year.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also delighted to be performing Burt Bacharach\u2019s songs with Rebecca Storm, Melanie McCabe, and Karen Black And The Sugarcubes, to name a few.<\/p>\n
\u2018I was a drummer who sang,\u2019 he says of his days in the showbands. \u2018Although at the time, I think I was a singer who played the drums, and I was probably realistically a better singer than I was a drummer.<\/p>\n
\u2018I loved drumming and singing and that\u2019s what I did in the 1970s, from my late teenage years right through to 1979 when I started working in RT\u00c9. I absolutely loved it. I kept on the singing and the drumming from time to time.\u2019<\/p>\n
About 20 years ago there was a revival of interest in the songs of the showbands and Ronan was persuaded by Eugene McCarthy to perform.<\/p>\n
Eugene is also the musical director of this Bacharach show and persuaded Ronan that singing was what he should be doing now.<\/p>\n
\u2018He\u2019s the guy that I do more work with than any other musician,\u2019 Ronan says. \u2018It\u2019s very exciting and isn\u2019t it great to be excited by something when you\u2019ve moved on to a different career?<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019ll be nervous enough and apprehensive enough because the songs are quality songs and people expect them to be sung in a quality manner. But all of us are working very hard on it.<\/p>\n
\u2018There\u2019ll be a 12-piece band too so it\u2019s a big show, lots of singers, lots of guests and just great music. I hope it hits the right note if you\u2019ll forgive the pun.\u2019<\/p>\n
Ronan will be singing six Bacharach numbers, including Joe Dolan\u2019s very first hit back in 1964, The Answer To Everything.<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019ll also be doing What\u2019s New Pussycat by Tom Jones. This Guy\u2019s In Love With You, which Herb Alpert had a huge worldwide hit with. I\u2019ll be doing Heartlight by Neil Diamond, which was co-written by Burt Bacharach, and I\u2019ll also be doing Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head.<\/p>\n
\u2018My favourite one of all is the song called Make It Easy On Yourself, which was a hit for an American singer [Jerry Butler] in 1962. But then The Walker Brothers had a hit on this side of the world in 1965 with it, with the legendary voice of Scott Walker.<\/p>\n
\u2018He was a magnificent singer, and his voice combined with a Bacharach melody was great. So it\u2019s a great song to sing.\u2019<\/p>\n
Ronan finished up his five days a week in RT\u00c9 at the end of 2022 but was asked to stay on and present on RT\u00c9 Gold, which he gave up just before Christmas.<\/p>\n
\u2018The reason that I finished was I had so many other things I wanted to do,\u2019 he says. \u2018They were changing course with RT\u00c9 Gold so I just figured it was a good time to go and devote myself fully to the singing and gigging career.\u2019<\/p>\n
He\u2019s got a few shows in the pipeline for the rest of the year and in summer he heads off to Spain with Stars Of The Sun.<\/p>\n
\u2018We have a great bit of fun doing that and the punters come along,\u2019 Ronan says. \u2018It\u2019s very different and enjoyable. I am retired from very active work, I\u2019m retired completely from broadcasting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘That said, I may have retired from RT\u00c9, but I haven\u2019t retired from life, and I certainly haven\u2019t retired from music.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘Music has been my life\u2019s work and I\u2019ve a new show that I\u2019m starting in September called An Evening With Roman Collins: Songs And Stories From A Life In Music with selected dates around the country.<\/p>\n
\u2018So I\u2019m not sitting around doing nothing. I\u2019m making great plans.\u2019<\/p>\n
And now there is more time with Woody, his wife of 48 years, herself a former showband singer with The Others.<\/p>\n
The pair met in a record shop and Collins famously asked her out twice only to be turned down before she finally relented.<\/p>\n
‘We’ve been holding hands ever since,’ he says. ‘We’re 48 years married this year and we know each other 50 years and she’s more a part of my life than anything has ever been.’<\/p>\n
He was meant to be travelling to Dubai for his youngest son Damien’s birthday this week but those plans have been cancelled, though Ronan is not worried about the war.<\/p>\n
‘We were looking forward to that because we haven’t celebrated his birthday with him in years because he’s been away ten years but I’m not worried about him,’ he says of the 39-year-old.<\/p>\n
‘I have two girls here at home, Jessica the eldest got married just over a year ago to Ger, who she met on First Dates.<\/p>\n
‘My middle child is my daughter Lisa, who has two sons – Caleb is 11 and Ezra is 8.<\/p>\n
‘They’re great boys and being a grandparent is fantastic. It’s so different to parenthood, a completely different thing, and it’s a great joy. ‘\u00a0<\/p>\n
Things have changed lately for Woody and Ronan. They downsized their house outside Kells and moved into an apartment in nearby Trim, which Ronan says was a great move.<\/p>\n
![\"Ronan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/107212279-15655119-image-a-42_1773772864035.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Ronan with his wife Woody.\u00a0They recently downsized their house outside Kells and moved into an apartment in nearby Trim,<\/p>\n
‘The house had got too big for us,’ he says. ‘So we did that modern thing of downsizing.’<\/p>\n
The act was easier, he says, than broaching the subject.<\/p>\n
‘It was hard to talk about the fact that we needed to do it,’ Ronan says, candidly.<\/p>\n
‘Then out of the blue someone asked us if we were interested in an apartment. We went to look at it for a bit of fun but we realised it was for us the moment we walked in the door.<\/p>\n
‘It’s a three-bedroom, two-bathroom penthouse apartment and it’s on the fourth floor and it has a roof garden. It’s as perfect as it can be.’<\/p>\n
It’s close enough to where they used to live and there’s room for the grandchildren.<\/p>\n
Ronan’s drumkit is there but not yet assembled.<\/p>\n
‘I had to learn a few things like there’s not as much storage space in an apartment as there is in a six-bedroom house,’ he says laughing. ‘But you learn to cut your cloth to suit your measure.<\/p>\n
‘And it’s home – home is where the two of us are and where our family is.<\/p>\n
‘We’ve always believed that home is not about bricks and mortar, and we are very lucky that the two of us are here together still after all these years.’<\/p>\n
He insists there is no animosity whatsoever between himself and RT\u00c9.<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019d had it at that stage, 43-and-a-half amazing years and I loved every minute of it,\u2019 he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018But it was time to stop and have time for myself and my wife and family. Now I\u2019m in a situation where I\u2019m just doing exactly what I want to do and it\u2019s an absolute joy.\u2019<\/p>\n
His advice to anyone who is retiring from their day job is not to do nothing. \u2018Just because you\u2019re retired from your main job doesn\u2019t mean that you\u2019re not capable of doing other things,\u2019 he says\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018The great thing about it is when you\u2019re in your late 60s\u00a0or early 70s, if you discover that you can play to your strengths, then do that. Do whatever you\u2019re good at.<\/p>\n
\u2018If you\u2019re doing it for financial reward, I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s the right motivation \u2013 you should be doing it because it\u2019s what you want to do more than anything.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘I think you\u2019ll find a new lease of life. I just love it and I love being active and I love talking about it.\u2019<\/p>\n
Ronan made the decision himself to leave RT\u00c9 and asked that they keep his departure under wraps so there was only a short period between the announcement and his final show, although he had known for a while that he was leaving.<\/p>\n
\u2018They accepted my decision and understood that I had thought it through,\u2019 Ronan says. \u2018It wasn\u2019t decided in a fit of pique or any kind of disagreement with RT\u00c9.<\/p>\n
\u2018They then spoke to me about possibly doing a bit of work with RT\u00c9 and I said the only thing I\u2019d be interested in doing would be something on RT\u00c9 Gold.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘I did that for three years, finishing up on December 23, 2025, three years from the day when I left RT\u00c9 One.<\/p>\n
\u2018That was the day I retired from broadcasting. I won\u2019t be doing it anywhere else for anybody else.<\/p>\n
\u2018I can hand on heart tell you that I look back on my time, yes there were ups and downs but you have to have bad times to appreciate the good times and for me, there\u2019s not a cloud in the sky.<\/p>\n
\u2018It was fantastic, it was a great life, a great career, I loved every minute of it. I\u2019m proud of myself and RT\u00c9 that we can both look each other in the eye and say, thank you very much.<\/p>\n
\u2018I was on with Oliver Callan recently and there were lots of people in there that I haven\u2019t seen in a long time. It\u2019s the people and the friends I miss but that\u2019sonly natural.<\/p>\n
\u2018I was greeted like a long lost son and everybody was very nice so that\u2019s my most immediate memory of RT\u00c9 and that\u2019s the one I want to keep.\u2019<\/p>\n
![\"Ronan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/107212253-15655119-image-a-43_1773773021846.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Ronan (far right) with Louis Walsh and Dickie Rock<\/p>\n
It’s a perspective that is easy to find as Ronan has lost a lot of friends, including his close pals Dickie Rock and Paddy Cole.<\/p>\n
\u2018We had a great friend of ours who died at 61 on New Year\u2019s Eve of motor neurone disease,\u2019 he says sadly. \u2018That was a terrible blow, she was a great friend.\u2019<\/p>\n
It has taught him to realise that you must grasp every opportunity that comes your way.<\/p>\n
\u2018If you wake up in the morning, that\u2019s a good day before youeven start, and then fill your day with things you like doing and people you like being with,\u2019 he says.<\/p>\n
\u2018I do have this mantra that you can\u2019t stop growing old, but for God\u2019s sake never grow up. Just keep that spark going in your life.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You\u2019d recognise those dulcet tones anywhere, given that they were a major part of our weekdays for over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[539,93,61,60,149742,1489],"class_list":["post-369253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-dailymail","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-m-ireland","tag-tvshowbiz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369253","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=369253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}