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John Kelly (born 31 May 1965 in Enniskillen) is an Irish broadcaster and writer. He presented The View on RTÉ One and The JK Ensemble and Mystery Train on RTÉ lyric fm. He used to present Other Voices . He also presents a one-hour show on RTÉ 2XM called Radio Clash.
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John Kelly was born in Enniskillen in 1965, the only child of Tommy and Lily Kelly. [1] He studied law at Queen's University Belfast, completed his postgraduate professional qualifications at the Institute of Professional legal studies and then promptly joined the BBC in Belfast to present the radio music show The Bottom Line. In 1991 he won the Sony Award was for best daily music show – The John Kelly Programme. Also in 1991 he won the EMA Award for Television Personality of the Year. He was, at the time, presenting an arts programme 29 Bedford Street. In 1992 he won an EMA Award was for best radio documentary – Maritime Blues which told the story of the club which was at the heart of the Irish rhythm and blues boom and which spawned the likes of Van Morrison and Them. Kelly interviewed just about every key player including Van Morrison and Rory Gallagher.
In the late nineties Kelly moved to Dublin to present the groundbreaking Eclectic Ballroom on what was then called Radio Ireland and which later became Today FM – forming a successful night-time partnership with Donal Dineen whose Here Comes the Night immediately followed The Eclectic Ballroom. He moved to RTÉ Radio in 2000 to present Mystery Train [2] and won the PPI Award for Music Broadcaster of the Year. Mystery Train was yet another instant cult classic and a trusted music source for the discerning listener. Elvis Costello showed up regularly to co-present and the show was listened to all over the world.
"An extraordinary programme", said Bono, "To go from Duke Ellington to Björk. To go from Woody Guthrie to The Virgin Prunes. It's an amazing thing to pull off. There's nothing like it anywhere in the world." When Mystery Train was suddenly taken off air in 2007 it was an event of some national controversy with the matter being raised in the Irish Senate. The final show was a featured as a news item on the national RTÉ 9 o'clock news and U2 and Elvis Costello appeared in gestures of support. Kelly admitted in interviews that he seriously considered quitting altogether at this time but late in 2008 he moved to RTÉ Lyric FM to present a new and very different show called The JK Ensemble. [3] Although RTÉ Lyric FM has traditionally been a classical music station The JK Ensemble covers everything from J.S. Bach to Brian Eno and from Miles Davis to Sigur Rós. John Kelly surprised everyone with an insistence on playing Igor Stravinsky, John Coltrane, Shostakovich, Lou Reed and Kurt Weill in the middle of the day but, again, the show was an instant success which significantly raised the profile of the station. When Kelly was on leave on one occasion the show was guest presented by two stars of The Wire – Reg. E Cathey and Clarke Peters. Kelly presented the final episode of The JK Ensemble on 11 August 2017. Kelly also presents Radio Clash on the digital channel 2XM which is a mixture of reggae, dub, punk and tracks from contemporary acts like TV on the Radio, White Stripes and Arcade Fire.
In 2017, John Kelly re-launched The Mystery Train on RTÉ Lyric FM. [4] The Sunday edition of the show is entitled Mystery Train Sunday Service and features a special guest, who selects the music. Guests have included Neil Hannon, Dorothy Cross, Cillian Murphy, Lisa Dwan and Gavin Friday. [5]
The View [6] was RTÉ's only arts weekly review programme broadcast on Tuesday nights. It ran from 1999 to 2011. A panel, with Kelly in the chair, and his pals in the other chairs, discussed movies, theatre and the visual arts with a musical performance at the end with acts such as Bono and Edge, Lyle Lovett and Brad Mehldau. The View has also been the scene of the debut performances by many acts including the 2006 winner of the Choice Music Prize Julie Feeney, and Josh Ritter. The View Presents was a separate strand of interview specials where Kelly talked at length with the likes of Seamus Heaney, Neil Jordan, The Edge, Steve Reich and Emmylou Harris. For several seasons he presented the RTÉ music series Other Voices [7] where he introduced artists like Ray Davies, Amy Winehouse and Elbow from a small church in Dingle in County Kerry. Most recently[ when? ] he co-presented the series with BBC Radio 1's Annie Mac.
Over the years he has interviewed (for TV, radio and The Irish Times ) many leading figures in the music and arts world – Van Morrison, Lou Reed, David Bowie, Seamus Heaney, Nina Simone, Brian Eno, Al Green, Steve Reich, Peter Brook, John McGahern, Solomon Burke, George Martin, Sam Phillips, U2, Brian Wilson, Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris, Vanessa Redgrave, Yoko Ono, BB King, John Berger, Herbie Hancock, Townes Van Zandt, Laurie Anderson, Mose Allison, Philip Glass, Screaming Jay Hawkins, Jimmy Scott, Philip Lynott, Randy Newman, Peter O'Toole and many more. [8]
Kelly narrated U2's Missing Sarajevo DVD documentary, filmed his own documentary on Elvis Presley in Tennessee and Mississippi and travelled further throughout the United States with the RTÉ travel programme No Frontiers . Other musical trips for radio have taken him to Senegal, Estonia and China. He worked as a music consultant on the Neil Jordan movie The Good Thief – which explains all the Leonard Cohen in the film.
Kelly has written a column for The Irish Times and contributed to numerous other publications on matters musical and cultural.
At university and immediately afterwards John Kelly was primarily known as a poet and was published in most of the important journals and magazines. He gave many readings in Ireland, Great Britain and the US. Although he had featured in several significant anthologies he never published a volume of his own until 2018 when Notions was published. Instead he took to writing prose.
The Little Hammer (Jonathan Cape 2000) and Sophisticated Boom Boom – a novel about music – was also published by Jonathan Cape in 2003. It was singled out for special praise by the writer William Gibson when asked by the (London) Independent what books he had by his bedside. He said it was "A universally applicable evocation of male adolescence and of the gifts that music brings." The Little Hammer was also critically well received with the Guardian describing it as, "Immediate, passionate and shot through with descriptive brilliance, the narrative voice is both charming and convincing." The List said it was "Completely illuminating. A book to be read and savoured." The Guardian called it "A witty, inventive, exhilarating novel." His novel From Out of the City was published in 2014 and was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards.
Kelly's debut volume of poetry, Notions, was published in 2018 by Dedalus Press. [9] In his review for the Dublin Review of Books, Gerard Smyth described Notions as an 'impressively accomplished collection' [10] while Caitriona O'Reilly, writing in the Irish Times , praised Kelly's 'poems of great tenderness and linguistic skill'. [11]
John Kelly has played harmonica on stage with Van Morrison, Tom Robinson, Horslips, Gavin Friday and Paul Brady and also co-wrote half a dozen songs on the Paul Brady album Say What You Feel .
The Journal of Music: Turn it Up: John Kelly: Toner Quinn [12] Hot Press – John Kelly [13]
Bill Whelan is an Irish composer and musician. He is best known for composing a piece for the interval of the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest. The result, Riverdance, was a seven-minute piece of original music accompanying a new take on traditional Irish dancing that became a full-length stage production and spawned a worldwide craze for Irish music and dance. The corresponding soundtrack album earned him a Grammy. "Riverdance" was released as a single in 1994, credited to "Bill Whelan and Anúna featuring the RTÉ Concert Orchestra". It reached number one in Ireland for 18 weeks and number nine in the UK. The album of the same title reached number 31 in the album charts in 1995.
RTÉ 2fm, or 2FM as it is more commonly referred to, is an Irish radio station operated by RTÉ. The station specialises in current popular music and chart hits and is the second national radio station in Ireland.
Today FM is an Irish national commercial FM radio station, owned and operated by Bauer Audio Ireland Limited. Broadcasting since 17 March 1997, it broadcasts mostly music, with a daily news and current affairs programme. Today FM holds a licence from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland as far as the year 2027. The station recorded pretax profits of €7.4 million on a turnover of €19.4 million in early 2009, more than twice what it was two years previously.
Raymond Michael D'Arcy is an Irish television and radio presenter currently on his second stint at state broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ). He once presented a self-titled weekday morning radio programme on the Denis O'Brien-owned Today FM. His professional partner on that show, Jenny Kelly, became his wife on 24 August 2013 and they have two children: Tom and Kate.
RTÉ News and Current Affairs, also known as RTÉ News, is the national news service provided by Irish public broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann. Its services include local, national, European and international news, investigative journalism and current affairs programming for RTÉ television, radio, online, podcasts, on-demand and for independent Irish language public broadcaster TG4. It is the largest and most popular news source in Ireland – with 77% of the Irish public regarding it as their main source of both Irish and international news. It broadcasts in English, Irish and Irish Sign Language. The organisation is also a source of commentary on current affairs. The division is based at the RTÉ Television Centre in Donnybrook, Dublin; however, the station also operates regional bureaux across Ireland and the world.
Martin "Marty" Whelan is an Irish radio and television personality currently working for Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ). His early television credits included the game shows Millionaire and Fame and Fortune, and the weekday afternoon show, Open House.
David Fanning is an Irish television and radio broadcaster, rock journalist, DJ, film critic and author. Fanning currently hosts weekend midday magazine/chat show The Dave Fanning Show on the Irish national radio station RTÉ 2fm and a number of RTÉ Radio 1 programmes. He regularly deputises on RTÉ Radio 1 across a range of primetime programmes and also presented his own Monday-Friday 9 am show Mornings With Dave Fanning in 2015.
Julie Feeney is a singer-songwriter, composer, actress, and record producer from Galway, Ireland. She produces and orchestrates her own work, composing both instrumental and electronic music, with full orchestrations. She is a three-time nominee for the Meteor Choice Music Prize for Irish Album of the Year, winning in 2006 for debut album 13 songs. She has released three studio albums on her own label 'mittens': 13 songs (2005), pages (2009), and Clocks (2012). Clocks entered at No.1 on the Irish Independent Albums Chart and No. 7 on the Main Irish albums charts making it her highest-charting album to date. Previously she worked as a professional choral singer and educator.
Paul Crossan is an Irish radio personality. He was born in Drimnagh, Dublin 12, grew up in Crumlin, and attended Drimnagh Castle Secondary School and later UCD. He has been a presenter on RTÉ 2fm since 2001. O'Shea has also presented The Poetry Programme on RTÉ Radio 1 in 2015 and 2016. Since 2017 he has been presenting the morning show on RTÉ Gold. He is currently presenting The Book Show on RTÉ Radio 1 since 2019.
Ciarán Farrell is an Irish composer who has been active in his field since graduating from Trinity College Dublin in 1997. He has composed works for orchestra, ensemble, choir, and solo instruments, as well as for TV and film productions.
RTÉ Lyric FM is an Irish classical music and arts radio station, owned and operated by RTÉ. The station, which is based in Limerick, was launched in 1999 and is available on FM throughout Ireland, on Sky Digital satellite in Ireland and the United Kingdom, and via the Internet worldwide.
Lorcan Gogan, known as Larry Gogan, was an Irish broadcaster working for RTÉ. He was a disc jockey on RTÉ Gold having previously worked on RTÉ 2fm. His show was The Golden Hour, during which he played old favourites and classic songs from yesteryear. Gogan spun the first disc on Radio 2, "Like Clockwork" by The Boomtown Rats. Louis Walsh has described him as one of "the kings of Irish broadcasting".
RTÉ 2XM is a digital radio station of the Irish public-service broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ). RTÉ 2XM is a sister station to RTÉ 2fm and focuses on alternative and indie music. The station is available nationally on Saorview Ireland's free to air DTT service, cable TV, online and via RTÉ Radio Player.
The View is an Irish television programme broadcast on RTÉ One between 1999 and 2011. Presented by John Kelly, it centred on arts-related topics. It was initially known as Later On 2 and was presented by various presenters until John Kelly joined RTÉ from Today FM, Later On 2 was broadcast on first Network 2 in 1997, it later rebranded as The View, it remained in the same broadcast slot but on RTÉ One until 13 December 2011. The View featured reviews of books, exhibitions, films, music, theatre and art. There was a varied panel of contributors who offer their opinions including artists, writers, journalists, film-makers and critics. The programme was broadcast each Tuesday night. The program's producer was Angela Ryan and it was directed by Declan Byrne.
John Creedon, also known as "Creedo", is an Irish language enthusiast and veteran broadcaster with RTÉ Radio. Host of The John Creedon Show, weekday evenings 8-10pm on RTÉ Radio 1, he has also filled in for Dave Fanning on The Dave Fanning Show.
Later On 2 was part of the Network 2/RTÉ Two N2 rebrand of 1997. It was broadcast after News 2 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night at 11:20pm.
John Murray is an Irish journalist and broadcaster. Currently heard on Weekend Sport, he presented The John Murray Show on RTÉ Radio 1, "focus[ing] on lifestyle and entertainment items", filling the slot from 09:00 to 10:00 previously occupied by Ryan Tubridy, who moved to RTÉ 2fm. Murray was one of the presenters of Morning Ireland, Ireland's most popular radio show, before going on to host his own weekly programme, The Business.
David McCullagh is an Irish journalist, author and presenter with Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), Ireland's national radio and television station, where he has presented the Six One News, alongside Caitríona Perry, since August 2020. He previously presented current affairs television programme Prime Time from 2013 to 2020, and was Political Correspondent with RTÉ News and Current Affairs.
Si Schroeder is the alias of Irish music artist Simon Kenny. He has released one studio album, Coping Mechanisms, and the singles Clocked, Jump Ship, C4 and Brailowsky to date as Si Schroeder.
Ardú Vocal Ensemble are an award-winning a cappella group, based in Dublin, Ireland. They were founded in 2013 by tenor Ciarán Kelly. Ardú specialise in arranging well-known popular music for four, five and six voices, exploring the use of the voice as an instrument with percussive sounds as well as melody and harmony. Ardú have pioneered the genre of a cappella music in Ireland with performances at the Cork International Choral Festival, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, London A Cappella Festival and have been featured on BBC Radio Ulster, RTÉ Lyric FM, RTÉ Radio 1 and The Ray D'Arcy Show on RTÉ 1.
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