Still to this day, I don’t know what it was that made me go: ‘I’m just going to live in Ireland’,” admits Today FM’s Alison Curtis.

The Canadian-born DJ decided to come over to Dublin in 1999 for a couple of months, intending to move to Scotland to start a Master’s programme. Some 17 years later, she now claims to be “98% Irish and 2% Canadian”, after taking a slightly unorthodox route to a career in radio and life in Ireland.

“I suppose even the path that led me into working for Today FM wasn’t typical at all. What I’ve done while I’ve been there isn’t typical either,” she says. “It’s been eventful, that’s for sure.”

early life

Indeed, Alison’s early life could be the plot of a book. Born in Kingston, Ontario, she and her twin sister Karen lost their father when they were just 14. Five years later, when the girls were just 19, their mother passed away.

She studied anthropology in Toronto, where she lived with a group of Irish people in her final year of college. They asked her to visit Ireland, and she did – not knowing it would become a permanent home.

Shortly after arriving in Dublin, Alison landed a job on Today FM working with Ian Dempsey. “I completely lucked out there,” she says.

“Not many people get the opportunity to work with someone who is the best at what they do. I was only with him for a short time, two years, before I became his producer. It was remarkable, given that we were from different countries and had a big enough age gap. It worked very well and I stayed there for around 10 years.”

While working as a producer with Ian Dempsey, Alison presented shows on Phantom FM and fell in love with radio in Ireland.

personal connection

“I think I became really fascinated by how unique it was in Irish society, that it was so important. In North America, we don’t tend to have a connection with radio, because it’s too big and you can’t have that personal connection,” she explains.

“Over here, it’s so intimate and you can connect and chat with your listeners. I think that’s why I ended up here, and my role in the station became bigger and more important. It became a career as opposed to a job.”

Annoyed with the lack of female voices on Today FM, she badgered the then chief executive of Today FM, Willie O’Reilly, for a presenting gig on the station. He gave her a slot on Sunday nights from 9pm to 11pm which, Alison admits, was not “high-risk territory”.

The show was The Last Splash, which ran from 2002 to 2009 and became one of Today FM’s longest-running programmes.

“It was a huge success. When I took it over, it only had 4,000 listeners and it grew to 41,000. At the moment, weekend shows are doing well if they touch 20,000,” says Alison.

“People still mention to me that they used to listen to me on their way to college. It makes me feel old.”

Full-time presenter

Alison became a full-time presenter with Today FM in 2008, taking the late-night slot and then moving to early mornings. She now presents the station’s weekend breakfast shows, which she loves.

“We were sitting at around 100,000, then it grew to 149,000 – and exceeded everyone’s expectations. It’s currently, I’m proud to say, the third most listened to show in the entire station,” she says.

“It just tapped into a population that has had babies in the past few years. It’s not exclusively for young families – we do shout-outs for guys on stags and other events – but it does focus on younger parents and families. It struck a chord with a lot of people and I love it.”

The weekend schedule suits Alison, who is mother to five-year-old Joan.

“I found getting the weekend shows brilliant, because it afforded me so much more time to spend with her during the week,” she says.” I have the day with her after school finishes, and I feel really lucky because I know that’s not the case for most parents.”

a special connection

Joan is named after Alison’s late mother, and keeping the connection alive is important to her.

“We do story time and I do word stories, which is basically me telling her about them and keeping them alive in her mind,” she says. “Thankfully my husband was happy to name Joan after my mother.

“We’ve been without our parents for a long time but we miss them terribly: they were remarkable individuals and great parents,” she adds.

Alison is married to Anton Hegarty (“a landscaper by day, bassist by night”), who she met two years after arriving in Ireland.

She decided to apply for citizenship because she “was the only Canadian in the house”, and it was granted to her in 2013. “I was really emotional about it on the day. Coming from Canada, it has a different implication than if you’re escaping different areas of the globe, but I also felt like it was very important to become a citizen,” she says.

Though we have seen more people leave Ireland for Canada in recent years, Alison is optimistic about her adopted home.

“A lot of that has changed quite a bit and there are a lot of green shoots in Ireland now. It’s an amazing country. I really love it. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else, really.” CL