Ray Foley commutes from Dublin to Cork to join Jason Coughlan on air

It’s six months since Ray Foley joined Red FM. He talks Dublin-Cork commutes with Marjorie Brennan

I am sitting in a radio studio listening to RedFM breakfast show presenter Ray Foley delivering a hilarious riff about the spider that has moved into his apartment — apparently he’s called Seamus and now has his own Xbox. Co-presenter Jason Coughlan is busting a gut laughing but as a guest listening in to the live show, I don’t have that option and struggle to suppress the giggles. The laughs come hard and fast listening to the two stars of Breakfast with Ray & Jay in action, and it’s the same in conversation. They have such an easy and humorous rapport, it’s hard to believe they have been presenting the show together for only six months, having been thrown together in less than auspicious circumstances after the departure of breakfast show host Kieran Cunningham (KC).

“The previous presenter — we’re not going to name him, he’s like Voldemort — left very suddenly,” says Foley [he later assures me he and KC are good friends]. “I was doing Saturdays and I was asked to come in and give it a go because they needed somebody to step in as quickly as possible. Jay was staying and I was saying ‘I don’t even know this guy, we might not even get on’ but we’ll give it a trial run. We were going on air on Monday and we were introduced to each other the previous Thursday in a hotel — it was all top secret.”