Before the news about Eamonn Lawlor's recent move, the idea that the Prime Time presenter would become the presenter on a drivetime show with the new radio station Lyric FM would have been viewed by the public as about as likely as Vincent Browne taking up ballet. But stranger things have happened. Think Sinead O'Connor. Think Bishop. Think hernia.
"It might seem strange to anyone who knows me merely from my appearances on Prime Time," the broadcaster, who begins his new radio career tomorrow, said recently. "But it won't surprise anyone who knows me at all well. I love music deeply and at the same time I prefer not to make any great distinctions between life and art".
So his friends weren't a bit surprised when he declared his intention to leave Prime Time behind to spin a mix of classical CDs E's at Limerick-based Lyric FM.
The veteran broadcaster has been an avid music buff since his halcyon days at Rockwell when string quartets played regularly in the school hall, the Beatles were on the turntable and all was right with the world.
A former student of piano, he says he loved school. He adored the way the teachers encouraged the individuality of the students and let them develop. "They gave me my head," he says. "They treated me well, they let me do my own thing."
Before Rockwell, Lawlor had been in something of a musical desert, with neither his schoolteacher father nor his recently deceased midwife mother having a musical bent at home in Co Westmeath. But between 1963 and 1968 he immersed himself enthusiastically in both classical music and the rock'n'roll of the swinging Sixties.
Lawlor excelled at academia but not at sports, and after securing a scholarship at Inter Cert level and a "pretty good" Leaving, he grew his hair and went to study English and Greek at UCD. When not studying or listening to opera he was treading the boards on campus where, rumour has it, he made quite a decent fist of one of the leads in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.
He was 21 and completing his postgraduate studies when some friends suggested "that if I cleaned my act up and cut my hair" he might have a shot as a television continuity announcer with RTE. A short stint with the Revenue Commissioners followed before he was plucked from Civil Service obscurity to begin his broadcasting career.
Continuity personnel didn't have it easy back then. Today's glamour boys and girls appear to have nothing more exerting to do than look seductive while purring inanities like "Let's see what Joey is up to in Friends." In Lawlor's time they acted as a kind of buffer between unreliable technology and unforeseen circumstances.
The young Lawlor was a natural broadcaster, and after a couple of years on continuity he moved to the newsroom, where his developing interest in current affairs was heightened. He started to read the news on radio and TV and presented the type of news feature programmes that would later evolve into Morning Ireland and 5-7 Live.
In 1979 he was appointed European Editor or, as others called it, "the best job in RTE" in the days before Mark Little made the Washington post seem like the most desirable gig.
Lawlor and his wife, Marie Murray, moved to Brussels, where their first and only child, Edward (now 13), was born. He is said to have been reluctant to come back but after 10 years he slotted with ease into the newly-created lunchtime news slot. Lawlor spent the intervening years on the Six One news with Anne Doyle before landing the Prime Time job. He was described by one person as being viewed within RTE as "literally too nice" for a hard-hitting programme such as Prime Time. Perhaps because of this, the last few years have not been the easiest for the RTE staffer, but one source said he braved these troubles "with typical courage and gentleness".
And the decision to go to Lyric, while it was preceded by a period of insecurity in his Prime Time position, is thought to have been entirely his own.
An RTE insider described him as "the embodiment of the Renaissance man. He knows so much about culture and music and literature and current affairs but never gives reason for you to suspect it." His only failing, according to the source, is that he is too tolerant. "He was often too understanding of people when it may not have been warranted." His co-presenter, Miriam O'Callaghan, said there was something "almost Jesuitical, something wholesome" about him. "In a world full of ambition and egos he is a breath of fresh air, totally unspoilt by the TV profession," she said.
According to Irish Times radio critic Harry Browne the new national station, Lyric FM, is likely to reach its first-year target of a 3 per cent audience. He is doubtful, however, whether the well-heeled audience Lawlor's show is aiming at will be prised away from the two current affairs shows that run on Radio 1 and Radio Ireland at the same time.
It is a slight risk for the high-profile presenter, whose career has not been without problems. "But I'm just grateful if people listen and enjoy the programme," he said.
"And they should," said one acquaintance. "He is a lovely presenter and a very lovely man"
Lyric FM can be reached in Dublin at 96.7 and countrywide from 96 to 99