Rick has been a radio presenter with RTE since 2001; prior to 2017 on RTE 2FM and since then presenting weekday afternoons and jazz show The Gold Lounge on RTE Gold.

He writes a weekly column on books for the Irish Independent Review section.

He is also a previous presenter of The Book Show and The Poetry Programme, both on RTE Radio 1.

He runs The Rick O’Shea Book Club – Ireland’s largest book club with over 40,000 members.

He conducts public author interviews year round including in recent years at Listowel Writers Week, Cúirt, Ennis Book Club Festival, International Literature Festival Dublin, Dalkey Book Festival, and Dublin Book Festival.

He has been literary curator at the UCD Festival since 2020 and was curator for the Waterford Writers Weekend in 2017 and 2018.

Rick has presented the International Dublin Literary Award ceremony, CBI Book Of The Year Awards, RTE Francis McManus Short Story Competition Ceremony and has co-presented the Irish Book Awards on RTE One TV.

He is part of the voting academy for the An Post Irish Book Awards, and has been a judge for the Bookseller UK and Ireland Young Adult Book Prize, the Costa Book Awards, and judging chair at the Dalkey Literary Awards. He has also been a judge at the Dublin Fringe Theatre Festival and one of the ambassadors for Irish Book Week.

He has had epilepsy since he was 16 and has been the National Patron of Epilepsy Ireland since 2006 both fundraising for the organisation and raising awareness of the condition including on The Late Late Show as a guest with Joe Schmidt.

Rick has been a speaker at international conferences on epilepsy in Montreal, Malta and Marseille as well as at the European Parliament in Brussels and on the use of social media in radio at Radiodays Europe.

In 2012 he won the so far only ever Irish series of Celebrity Mastermind. It is the thing he is most proud of in his professional life and he doesn’t mind you knowing that.

You can contact him by mailing rick@rte.ie