Ian Dempsey

breakfast show, which runs from 7 to 9am every weekday morning. He has won several major awards for his programmes and remains one of the most popular broadcasters in Ireland.

Career

Dempsey began his first experiments in radio in 1967 when at the age of six he made his first radio show in a friend's house. In 1978 he joined Dublin pirate station Capitol Radio, and later worked for Alternative Radio Dublin and Radio 257.

In 1980 he joined the national broadcaster RTÉ, to present "The Weekend Breakfast Show", and later, shows such as "Poparama", "The Hotline", "Night Train" and "The Great Giveaway Show". Dempsey later hosted the lunchtime show before moving to Breakfast in the mid 80's. He picked up where Marty Whelan had left off engaging the audience with his natural personality, a world apart from the 'jocks' that stalked the radio centre at the time. Apart from a brief time off breakfast following 2Fm's 1989 relaunch, he has remained on early mornings since. At that time Maxi was placed on breakfast and after a few weeks it was apparent to all that her style not suited to the format. Dempsey was reinstated.

1986 saw Dempsey's first major exposure to television, with the now infamous children's show Dempsey's Den, which also gave the alien twin puppets Zig and Zag their first break to the small screen. He presented The Den until the summer of 1990. He also worked on various TV shows including three seasons of The Beatbox, a two-hour music video show simulcast on Network 2 and RTÉ 2FM. He was also the first host of Talkabout.

Dempsey weathered the storm of the advent of independent radio in Ireland on 2Fm breakfast. His style was informal and relaxed. His rapport with Des Cahill was particularly strong. John Clarke, now head of 2FM, produced the show and occasionally deputized.

Dempsey shocked the Irish radio world in 1998 by announcing a move to the newly relaunched Today FM. He had been tempted by a sizable salary package to join the station that 12 months beforehand had languished with a minimal JNLR result. Since September 1998 he has worked at the station with his Gift Grub team providing comedic value. 2FM have struggled to find a suitable replacement ever since. When the move was announced he was refused entry to the Montrose campus and publicly complained that over 20,000 albums of his were not returned to him by RTÉ. In recent years it has been widely reported that 2FM have tried to tempt him back. In 2007 Dempsey started presenting an online radio show for Irish people abroad called The Craic freely downloadable from [http://www.getthecraic.com www.getthecraic.com]