Annie MacManus is one of the brightest new talents on BBC Radio One. It's a dream job that was worth chasing, she tells Jim Carroll

For the young Dubliner, it was a eureka moment. In the mid-1990s, Annie MacManus was just another student at Queen's University in Belfast. She was having a whale of a time in the city, discovering the joys of clubbing at the Shine club night and feeding her obsession with music at every opportunity. Of course, she was also thinking a little about what she would do when her English degree course ended.

Then, she discovered BBC Radio One. "You can hear Radio One in Dublin now through your TV or computer, but back then, the reception was really poor so I had never heard the station at home.

"Listening to Radio One in Belfast as a 17-year-old had a huge effect on me, especially because of the female DJs on the station. You had people like Emma B and Mary-Ann Hobbs playing cool music. I thought 'I want to do that' and that's when the radio bug began."

These days, MacManus, who's now 28, considers BBC Radio One to be her spiritual home. She has two weekend shows on the station and has gained a rep for her enthusiastic, breezy and knowledgeable style. One of the station's brightest new talents, MacManus does sound as if she was born for this gig.

Surprisingly, though, she had little time for what was on the radio while growing up in Dublin. Coming from a large family of music fans and players (her brother Davey is in rising indie band The Crimea), she rarely turned to the wireless for music as a kid.

"It was like radio didn't exist," she remembers. "I was mad into music. I went to loads of gigs and played loads of music but for some reason, radio wasn't part of the deal. I remember listening to Marian Finucane but in terms of youth radio, I didn't find any. I did listen to pirates like Phantom and Power and it's great to hear that Phantom are finally legally back on air."

After finishing at Queen's, she headed to London. She had sat in on some shows at local stations in Belfast but felt she needed more production know-how. "I found a post-grad course in radio production in London which sounded really interesting so I went for that."

BBC Radio One was where she wanted to go, but she knew that would take time. "I had to learn the ropes so I worked in all kinds of radio stations. My first radio gig was on an internet station aimed at men aged between 25 and 34. We made programmes about cars and the stock market and played supposedly man music like Depeche Mode and Crowded House."

MacManus was soon producing nine different shows for the station. "They went bust after eight months but there was so much money pumped into the station that we had deadly studios and equipment. I went from doing the late-night weekend show to the afternoon show and learned an awful lot."

When the BBC did offer her a job as a broadcasting assistant, she had some reservations. "I really thought BBC radio would be awful," MacManus says. "I thought it would be posh, stuck-up and terribly British. It couldn't have been further from that. Radio One is full of really eccentric, cool and creative people." She also found that her fellow employees were hugely encouraging when she said she wanted to be on the other side of the microphone.

"Once people knew I had done some radio before, they were very willing to push me in the right direction and help me with demos. The hardest part of my career to date has been getting into Radio One, which took two years. But once I was in, they were very open to me becoming a presenter."

MacManus's first on-air appearances involved voicing station promos before an opportunity came to stand in for an absent DJ. She has hardly stopped moving within Radio One since that debut. "Once you're good enough, they will give you a chance. My ideal radio show, I am happy to say, is the one I currently have. That's one of the joys of Radio One, I have complete freedom in what I can play."

At the moment, MacManus is bedding down in her two new slots on Friday and Sunday nights. "It's taking a bit of getting used to," she admits. "You need a good six months in a slot before people realise you are there." Because she still stands in for other DJs when they are away, she has become a familiar voice on the station. "I cover for Zane Lowe and for Jo Whiley and I love doing that because it gives you a different perspective on things."

She doesn't see herself going anywhere for a very long time. "I would like to be there when I'm in my sixties, like Annie Nightingale. That's the dream. That's the beautiful thing - you can get on with your life and have a family and do the radio show once or twice a week. Radio is my first love and I'd like it to be my last."