Rick O'Shea

This article is about the radio personality. For the comic strip, see Rick O'Shay.

Rick O'Shea
File:Rick O'Shea.jpg Rick O'Shea in January 2009
Born	Paul Crossan May 1973 (age 51) Drimnagh, Dublin
Residence	Ireland
Nationality	Irish
Alma mater	UCD
Occupation	Broadcaster
Employer	RTÉ
Known for	Daytime Radio Show
Height	5' 9.5"
Website	Personal weblog

Paul Crossan (born on 7 May 1973; assigned Rick O'Shea at the age of 20 while working for the now defunct longwave pop music station Atlantic 252) is an Irish radio personality. He was born in Drimnagh, Dublin 12, and attended Drimnagh Castle CBS and later UCD. He has been a presenter on RTÉ 2fm since 2001.

Activities

O'Shea was known amongst Ireland's blogging community and founder of his own blog. In April 2006, he hosted the inaugural Irish Blog Awards, and has regularly presented the annual Irish Web Awards and Irish Social Media Awards ceremonies. In 2010, he announced his permanent retirement from blogging but does use Twitter.

Rick has been a presenter on RTÉ 2fm since 2001 and presently hosts a lighthearted weekday afternoon listener participation driven talk and music show. Rick and "side-kick" Cormac Battle's daily repartee includes talk of the more trivial side of world news, pop-culture and Rick's obsession with the TV Show House. Rick also presents the 2XM new music show "Dawn of The Deadly" Wednesdays at 7pm repeated Fridays at 11am and Sundays at 4pm.

On 22 July 2012, Rick won the Irish celebrity version of the iconic TV quiz show Mastermind representing Brainwave.

Nominations

He's been 3 times nominated for Best Irish DJ at the now defunct Meteor Music Awards. O'Shea has also been nominated for 3 PPI National Radio Awards, winning a bronze award in 2011. In 2009 he was winner of Entertainment.ie's "Sexiest Radio Voice" award and was quoted as saying "This is the first thing I've ever won in 16 years of being a broadcaster. I am thus very excited and hideously embarrassed at the same time. Thanks."

Trivia

• On Monday 28 May 2007, while interviewing actor and singer Jason Donovan on his radio show, he mentioned Donovan's previous role as Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. O'Shea then spoke of his part as narrator in the play as a 16-year-old where he stood at the side of the stage wearing a stick-on beard.
• On Thursday 24 July 2008, while guest hosting The Gerry Ryan Show on RTÉ 2FM, he became the first Irish DJ to use a live Twitterstream as a back channel on national radio.
• The late Richard Whiteley noted that he would have called himself Rick O'Shea if he had been an Irish DJ after a contestant made up the word ricochet on the Channel 4 game show Countdown.
• On 24 March 2011, Rick posed the question to the nation "What questions would an Irish Citizenship Test include?" The topic later became a global trend on Twitter under the hash tag #citizenshiptest.
• In January 2011, he ranted on air about the lack of information on his Wikipedia page. Wikipedia has since worked its socks off to produce more data to satisfy Rick's ever-increasing needs but has been unsuccessful due to lack of information in the public domain.
• His epilepsy diagnosis came at 16 and he's blogged about his seizures. In March 2006, Rick became a patron of Brainwave, the Irish Epilepsy Association, in 2011 appearing in an information video on the correct First Aid procedures for Seizures. He then represented the charity in the Irish edition of "Celebrity Mastermind" hosted by Nora Owen, and won the whole competition.
• In July 2011, O'Shea played the Kazoo live on air in accompaniment to Pugwash's "Answers On A Postcard".
• In May 2011, Andrea Corr, former lead singer with The Corrs, gave a special on air concert during the show. After her performance O'Shea presented her with a birthday cake as she had recently celebrated her 37th birthday.
• The name "Rick O'Shea" was assigned to him when he first began working for national UK radio station Atlantic 252 at the age of 20. It is a play on the word "Ricochet." When Rick moved to FM104 and later RTÉ 2FM he retained the name. O'Shea worked at East Coast Radio and South East Radio under his real name.

External links

• Rick's blog
• Rick's page at RTÉ
• Brainwave--The Irish Epilepsy Association
• Interview with United Irelander blog
• Rick's Dawn of The Deadly Playlists