As he nears the end of the final edition of his afternoon show, Ronan Collins makes a halfhearted attempt to tamp down the emotion of the occasion. “The instruction is, Close the door gently behind you,” he says, as if to ready himself for his exit.
But as soon as he introduces his valedictory song, Thank You for Being a Friend, by Andrew Gold, things go awry. Normally the epitome of on-air bonhomie, Collins falls uncharacteristically quiet. Then his voice catches. “Yeah, so many friends,” he manages to say before urging himself to keep it together: “Come on, Ronan.” As he takes his leave of the daily show he has hosted on RTÉ Radio 1 since 1985, Collins doesn’t so much close the door as slam it and take off the hinges.
In the process he breaks a personal promise. Talking to Philip Boucher-Hayes on Today with Claire Byrne beforehand, Collins says, “It’s very important that I don’t crack up.” But one suspects that the long-serving DJ is not the only one shedding a tear, judging by the amount of correspondence he has apparently received since announcing his departure, two weeks ago. Not for the first time, Collins suggests that his core audience worry that their musical tastes will be overlooked once he’s gone. “They’re just wondering where they might hear it,” he says of his range of music, as he plays tracks by artists from Linda Ronstadt and John Prine to the home-grown stars Joe Dolan and Tony Kenny.
The latter category have been a key part of Collins’s success. Those of us who didn’t misspend our youth on the Irish dance hall circuit of the 1960s and 1970s may have occasionally been baffled by his tendency to attribute greatness to so many showband musicians and ballroom crooners of the era. But in proclaiming his admiration for what once got the floors hopping, Collins – a showband drummer in the 1970s – undoubtedly cemented his relationship with his audience of contemporaries. True, he notes that he would sometimes get messages critical of his choices – “There you are, playing your friends again” – but he makes clear that he valued not just these friendships but the music in question, too, as his heartfelt tribute to Kenny attests.
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In a way, it’s an atypical show. For much of the year Collins’s playlist would largely consist of tracks by artists whose birthday (or anniversary) fell on that particular date – there was the wicked suspicion that if his calendar went missing he might be stuck for a show – but, given the season, Christmas songs dominate this final programme. And while another key part of his appeal has always been listeners’ requests – few broadcasters read birthday dedications with such reliable gusto – the volume of messages curtails this. “I’m apologising in advance that I cannot possibly mention everyone.”
Yet it’s not a totally maudlin affair. For all Collins’s avuncular style, he could be a grumpy uncle at times, too, sounding tetchy if a listener complained about a request not being played, for example. There’s no such flintiness here, but he surely sets off a few klaxons in Montrose when he introduces a track he feels is “completely politically incorrect”. Fears that Collins is about to go full Jeremy Clarkson are misplaced, however. Instead he plays Erik the Awful by Ray Stevens, a harmless novelty song, but it displays an admirable determination not to be too soppy. Similarly, after his momentary weepy lapse, he wryly notes that his wife says his bladder is too close to his eye.
And it turns out that his audience should dry their eyes. Collins slightly shamefacedly informs listeners that not only will he be hosting one-off shows on Radio 1 from January; he will also have a show on the online station RTÉ Gold from February: he hasn’t gone away, you know.
For all that, Collins’s departure – his own decision, he emphasises to Boucher-Hayes – means Radio 1 is losing its longest-serving daytime presenter, whose presence – and, more crucially, audience – has possibly been taken for granted, so permanent a fixture has he become. His core listeners may worry that they, or at least their musical preferences, will be regarded as irrelevant relics as the (excellent) new presenter Louise Duffy prepares to take over the slot in January. He’ll be missed, but Collins is getting out while he’s still ahead: he may have closed the door on his daily show, but, as his forthcoming projects suggest, new ones have already opened.
