Some of the best-known names on the airwaves have been helping students to polish their skills behind the microphone. Gráinne Faller reports
The studio is set up. The guests are ready. Heads are nodding and people are humming to You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) by Celebrity Big Brother's Pete Burns. As the song comes to an end the DJ puts her headphones on and glances at her producer. Suddenly, the school bell rings.
There are lots of things to consider if you're making a radio programme, although the sounds of bells and of students moving from one class to another are rarely among them. But then making a show for national broadcast in a school classroom is not exactly the norm, either.
We are at St Michael's Loreto Secondary School, in Navan, Co Meath, where the transition-year class is putting together a show for RTÉ 2fm's TY Radio. "Ah, the noise isn't as bad here as some schools," says Maggie Stapleton. As TY Radio's executive producer she has been travelling the country with her team, helping students make their programmes. "In some of them you'd think it was elephants stomping around," she says, laughing.
Once the commotion has subsided, the interview can take place. Recording begins again, but, as the DJ introduces the guests, a shriek from a rogue student outside the window, who is apparently practising her opera singing, comes through the glass. A sigh of frustration, a scatter of giggles, the tape is stopped and, once the singing has passed, recording starts again.
Everyone takes these hiccups in their stride. The task is to make a magazine programme to be broadcast this month. The process has been quite long. Before Christmas, the TY Radio team visited schools around the country to give a one-day radio course to the transition-year students they met. Then each class submitted a proposal for a radio show, the best eight of which the team picked to return to.
Making the programme takes a week of intensive work, and everyone in the class has a role. Alicia Monerawela, who is producing the programme, explains what the students did. "On Tuesday we got into groups and were given our jobs. We recorded an interview with the jockey Nina Carberry, who used to go to this school. On Wednesday we did some minidisc recording. Today we're recording all day."
The whole process, from choosing candidates for the jobs to what songs to play, is democratic. "Things like picking the music are gas," says Stapleton. "If there's a dispute over two songs we vote on it, and usually we have to have a big group hug afterwards."
Alison O'Donnell was chosen as the main presenter of the show. "I was so nervous," she says. "At the start I was just saying to myself: Don't get sick, don't get sick; you'll ruin the equipment." Now she sounds like a seasoned professional, although the biggest lesson is not quite what you might expect. "I've learned that my voice sounds really young," she says, laughing.
A mixture of talk, music and interviews, one feature that could be made only in this town is a sketch called "The Rough Guide to the Navan Man", by Emma Rogers and Cheryl Gorman. "It started with the accent," says Emma. "And then it just developed. It's about the way Navan men go on. They don't really care about women or how they're dressed." The result is a hoot.
RTÉ 2fm goes on the road for TY Radio, the studio resembling any that would be set up for an outside broadcast. Alicia is sitting with Orla Lorton, her broadcasting assistant, opposite the recording desk. The sound desk is set up complete with 2fm logos. A sound engineer ensures that everything is recording. The atmosphere is electric, and there is a sense of excitement in the school, with students peeping in during a break between classes and teachers popping in to have a look and say hello.
When Damian Farrelly, the 2fm DJ, arrives to be interviewed, everyone has had lunch, their nerves are subsiding and the girls are beginning to enjoy themselves. Farrelly, who lives in Co Meath, is on a week's holiday. He agreed to come in when Hector Ó hEochagáin, the students' initial interview choice, asked for a fee.
After an entertaining conversation about his culinary ambitions and the perks of his job, he presents Sinéad Burke, his interviewer, with a lunch box from his radio show. The girls are on a high, and they start clapping and singing to the next track, Franz Ferdinand's Take Me Out.
"God, it's strange being on the other side of the mic," says Farrelly afterwards. "That was great. They're not a bit fazed by it. I couldn't imagine doing that at their age. I would have been in the corner, hiding behind my copybook." He stays to hear the end of the show. There are extra links to be recorded, as well as a sign-off that leads into Westlife's version of You Raise Me Up, which they dedicate to absent friends and classmates. It has been a difficult year - everyone has been through a lot - and the students sway to the music.
The calm ends as the song finishes and pizzas arrive for the all-important wrap party. Farrelly takes to the decks, but he is soon usurped by the students, who play tunes as if they have been doing it forever. "This is where the shyer students come out," says Stapleton.
"It has been a brilliant week," says Alicia. "I can't wait to hear the full thing."
TY Radio begins on April 16th, broadcasting every Sunday, from 7pm to 8pm. The participating schools are Presentation Secondary School, Thurles (April 16th), St Flannan's College, Ennis (April 23rd), St Michael's Loreto, Navan (April 30th), Scoil Carmel, Limerick City (May 7th), CBS High School, Clonmel (May 14th), Sancta Maria College, Louisburgh, Co Mayo (May 21st), Presentation College, Headford, Galway (May 28th) and Convent of Mercy, Longford (June 4th)
