Ian Dempsey has found a brand new lover. There was a multiple dose of the seven-year itch; he tried to talk it over with his partner and her response? She dumped him.
RTE may not regard herself as Ian Dempsey's former partner (nor he hers) but the manner of her letting him go was certainly unceremonious. Having given almost 19 years of his life to her charge, he might have reasonably expected a more concerted effort from her to keep her Breakfast Show man. Instead he was given his marching orders and just hours to clear out his record collection.
Nine weeks on, however, Dempsey has gathered himself together. He has found a new reason to get up in the mornings. And from the posters beaming down at us all over the country, trumpeting how Today FM "poached" him for breakfast, we may infer that the independent radio station proved a better wooer than RTE. Reports that their flirtations has cost Today FM £150,000 a year are reports upon which Dempsey will not comment.
He has just completed week-one of The Breakfast Show with Ian Dempsey, and sitting in Today FM's offices, the late Monday-morning sun gleaming through the Georgian windows, he leans forward and says that he is happy just to have the first day over and done with.
"I was so apprehensive, waking up last night, on the hour, every hour. I think I was more nervous about this than I was before starting in RTE or a new gig in RTE. There was just such a big build-up to it, and everywhere I look there's this poster looking down at me."
Monday morning's show has been punctuated with phone calls from the public to say how pleased they are to hear Ian's undisruptive voice back on air. "I'm delighted you're back, and I've switched over from 2FM to listen to you," enthuses Carol O'Keefe from Milltown in Dublin.
"I'm delighted to be here," coos Ian. "So you're going to stick with us I hope?"
The jubilant atmosphere in Today FM offices that morning may be there all the time - an air of almost highly-strung exuberance - but Dempsey says he feels no pressure, no sense that he is there to "save" the station. "Maybe that was there in November, but to be honest I think that in the past six months, Today FM has saved itself. There's a strong line-up now. Mark Cagney, Eamonn Dunphy and John Kelly. That's a line-up which is not being touched."
The fortysomething first got into radio when he was 17, listening to the old pirate stations and wondering if he couldn't do better. One friend in particular said he should make a tape - "which I still have" - and the young Ian went to the friend's house, recorded a demo and sent it into a pirate station called Capital. "And I got a job, mainly, I think, because I was willing to do the early morning show." From there he went to Alternative Radio Dublin and after three touch-and-go auditions joined RTE's new second radio station in March 1980.
The stories of the opening and closing of his Montrose career are equally fraught.
"Last November," he says, "I was totally honest with RTE. I told them I was thinking of moving to Today FM, telling them I would make my decision by August 24th. I think they thought they could let it drift but I had to put a deadline on it. So on the 24th I went in, told my direct boss and assumed I'd work out the month, say goodbye to the listeners. I did that at 10 past 10 and went for coffee. At 10.40 I was told my services were no longer required. After 18 years' service.
"I don't think I realised the importance of it. I think I was on a bit of a high and it wasn't until about a week after that, I think there may have been a little trauma. I was away for a weekend and I started getting pains all over me, kind of withdrawals. It was a loss, almost a bereavement. Helen [Shaw, director of RTE Radio] is a tough cookie but I don't have any bitterness. Why should I? I know they seem to have bent over backwards to keep Gerry Ryan, but they only did at the last minute."
He says the perception that RTE is a more secure place to work, that moving to a station that has not yet established itself is inherently reckless, is just that - a perception.
"I think RTE is pretty cut-throat. Who's to say that someone else younger wouldn't walk in and that they wouldn't decide they didn't need me anymore. That's going to be a worry and a risk wherever you are.
"The things I miss most about RTE is the people I worked with, the people behind the scenes, in the sound library, the coffee bar - I miss all that. But I've had great encouragement from them, too. I got a card from the sound library, got a call from my former broadcasting assistant and a call from Gareth O'Callaghan [who has taken over his breakfast slot on 2FM]. And best of all I got a bunch of flowers from Zig and Zag. I think a lot of people feel it has probably been good for RTE, shaken people up a bit. I haven't spoken to Helen since, but I'm sure we'd be civil to each other."
He has had nine weeks to fill since he left RTE, nine weeks he hadn't planned on, but it has meant that he could go on holiday with his wife Ger and three children, Shane (8), Evan (4) and Aislinn (2) - "Thank you very much Helen" - and he could go to his brother's wedding in Rome and spend time at home in Sutton.
So, Dempsey was part of RTE's second radio channel just after its birth. He has joined Today FM now soon after its new beginning. Will he still be smitten in 2016 - 18 years from now?
"I don't want to think anything like that far into the future. I have a threeyear contract for now and the plan is to get the mortgage offset, and then maybe we'll do the house in the Seychelles."
The Breakfast Show with Ian Dempsey is on Today FM on weekdays, 7-10 a.m