Rick O’Shea aims to hit €100,000 target for charity after busiest year of his career

RTE Gold presenter Rick O’Shea has again launched his 2020 Book Club Christmas Appeal aiming to raise €100,000 over three years.

This years appeal aims to raise funds for the Peter McVerry trust, The Samaritans and the DSPCA.

In November 2019, Rick O’Shea and the other RTE Gold staff were told that their station would be closing at some point in early 2020. Along came a global pandemic, and now Gold presenter Rick O’Shea looks back on what has probably been the busiest year of his radio career.

Rick O’Shea aims to hit €100,000 target for charity after busiest year of his career

“Suddenly there was no sport and a country in total lockdown, so radio needed more music and there we were. I found myself broadcasting on RTE Gold for three hours every weekday and then as a simulcast with Radio 1 on Saturday afternoon. It was quite the turnaround and because people were stuck at home and hadn’t maybe heard Gold before we had the most amazing response.”

Sport has since resumed on the airwaves, but RTE Gold is still on air, O’Shea is back to weekday mornings and is now busy with a new series of his RTE book show every Sunday night on Radio 1 at 7pm. 

As if a six day week since March was not enough, he is happy to add to the workload his own online literary chat show ’Shelf Analysis’, now hitting episode 53. 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/therickosheabookclub

“I was watching chat shows doing all these interviews with authors by zoom and I thought why not give it a go?”
O’Shea delved into his 61,000 twitter followers and fired off messages.

“And would you believe they replied and said sure let’s do it. I started off with friends like Liz Nugent but then moved onto John Irving, Bernardine Evaristo and Janine Cummins. Graham Norton said he was at home doing nothing either and would love to do it”.

He is sanguine about his fortune.

“One of the most recurring themes from the last 8 months on RTE Gold is that people who are in unusual situations really value the company and the escape from Covid. You are so aware of the people out there who have nothing to do, may have lost their jobs or who are really struggling mentally. I’m always aware of how lucky my situation is, so again I needed to try and do something to help charities who need help.”

This years appeal aims to raise funds for the Peter McVerry trust, The Samaritans and the DSPCA.

It has raised €87,000 since 2018.

You can donate to the Rick O’Shea Book Club Appeal here until December 31st:

bit.ly/ROSBCXmasAppeal2020

Rick O’Shea lives in Dublin with his wife and their two new rescue dogs George and TJ.

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