Hector Ó hEochagáin must have every byroad and boreen in Ireland travelled. Irish Country Living is no sooner perched on the seat in front of him than he wants to know where I’m from. It turns out he knows the exact area, the villages either side of it – and that the pub over the road is getting in a new kitchen.

“I was in there for a few sandwiches about two weeks ago,” he quips.

The TV and radio presenter has trekked more than the highways and byways of this island, however, he’s been to nearly 100 countries presenting travel programmes for TG4. His next venture with the station is keeping him a little closer to home though: Ennis to be exact.

Hector will be presenting FleadhTV alongside Mairéad Ní Chuaig and Lynette Fay. The programme will consist of a live broadcast on the channel the evenings of 18 to 20 August and also a live stream on the TG4 website.

a new role

The Meath man is excited about his new role in the broadcasting of Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann. He owes a lot to traditional music – after all, he did meet his wife Dympna, who hails from the Banner, at a céilí. On top of that, he’s also related to half the Kilfenora Céilí Band.

“The drummer, the accordion player and the concertina player are all related to me through marriage. My eldest boy plays the banjo, and he has gone to the county fleadhs.

“You are going to have hundreds of thousands of young musicians, old musicians and international musicians. And I just think it’s brilliant: they all come together under one umbrella. The Fleadh is Mecca for traditional musicians.”

Hector believes traditional music is central to Irish identity: that music, song and dance, along with Irish cuisine and the GAA, are what make people uniquely Irish. Of course, Hector has another element to further highlight his Irishness: the cupla focal!

An Gaeltacht

Surprisingly, he didn’t grow up in a house where Irish was the first spoken language – but his mother did send him off to the Gaeltacht, bag and baggage, every summer from the time he turned nine. The gaeilgeoir admits that he has females to thank for his fluency in the language.

“By the time I was 13, I was saying: ‘Mam, can I go back for two months?’ Because I used to go out with a girl there. Then the next year I’d go out with another girl and I’d say: ‘Mam, can I go for three months?’

“I love the Gaeltacht. At the moment my children are in the Gaeltacht in Connemara, out there with the Bean an Tí. I hope they have a good time.”

Despite his love for travelling to exotic places, it’s the countryside that Hector calls home. Settled in Claregalway down the bottom of a cul-de-sac, he’s enjoying the quiet life and sense of community it brings. He recently coached the local Under 13 football team to glory at a blitz in Portmarnock and reveals he played minor football for Meath himself back in the day.

“I am just putting back in the love I got for the game – and then I remember why the GAA was set up in the first place: it was to mould the young men and women of the country – and especially keep away that game called cricket.”

Hector goes farming

Eternally a messer, Hector jokes with Irish Country Living that he didn’t grow up on a farm, but they “always had a calf and a few bits out the back” and that his uncles are “big proud Meath farmers”.

His house in Claregalway is surrounded by fields, and he says there’s farming coming at him from all angles.

Recently, on a lovely summer’s evening, there was silage being cut in the field behind his house. Hector explains there was a fine machine pulled in directly behind his back wall. The lights were just going on at about 9 o’clock and he thought it was a lovely sight, so he took a picture and put it up on Twitter.

“I was saying: ‘Look at this from by back window, combining out the back’ and I put it up on Twitter. Within minutes, people were tweeting: ‘That’s not a combine, that’s a forager’, and saying: ‘I thought a Meath man would how to farm.’ I thought it was a combine, but it was a bloody forager.

“The question is though,” he laughs, “does everyone reading this magazine know the difference between a combine and a forager?”

The length and breadth of the country travelled – indeed the world over – and he still doesn’t know the difference between a combine and a forager. CL