I lived at No 25 Sharavogue from about 1979, when I was 11, until I was about 20 or 21. It is a small development on Upper Glenageary Road, south Co Dublin, and my family moved there from Greystones, Co Wicklow.
It was a four-bedroom detached house and we thought it was really unusual for the time because it had an downstairs lavatory. It was built in the 1970s on land that was originally attached to Sharavogue House, which was once an estate of about 100 acres.
I was a pupil at Clonkeen College, so Glenageary was a bit off the beaten track for me. Most of my friends were living in places such as Cabinteely and Johnstown, so I had to do a fair bit of travelling to see them.
Although I stayed at No 25 until I was about 21, I did move away for a brief period when I was 18. I got a job at a pirate radio station in ... let’s just say, the midlands.
The remuneration package was supposed to include accommodation but, when I got there, it turned out to be a rickety caravan in the yard of the building where the station was. I lasted about two weeks in that job before I decided to go home.
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A lot of my time growing up was spent in Dun Laoghaire, fishing off the pier and in other spots. Back then, there were always plenty of fish. I also fished off Killiney Beach and down in Greystones, where I remember landing cod from the beach in the winter.
These days, you might be lucky to get a few mackerel late in the summer. I tried a bit of fishing off the Kish lighthouse recently and it was terrible. All the fish are gone.
I spent a lot of time swimming in the Forty Foot, too. I still do when I get a chance, but not that often.
In my teens, I used to hang out a lot in Dun Laoghaire, but when we started going to pubs, Dalkey became the destination. The Queen’s and Finnegan’s were great in those days, really hopping. You always seemed to be shoulder to shoulder with people you knew when you went in and then, gradually, everyone seemed to drift away and leave the country — or the area anyway. Jester’s nightclub in the Killiney Castle Hotel was another favourite spot.
The social scene has really changed now. If you go into any of those places these days, they are much quieter. I suppose people just don’t have the money any more.
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When I was 16, I set up my own pirate radio station in the garage at No 25. All you needed was power, a transmitter and a pair of decks and off you went. I used to transmit whenever I felt like it and play whatever I felt like.
I went to work for Capitol Radio in 1989 and stayed with the station for a couple of years before moving to Ennis in Co Clare to take up a job at Clare FM. Then I returned to Dublin for a job at 98FM before going to TV3.
I have a brother, Paul, who is a musician, and a sister, Michelle, who is a costume designer. Both of them left home before me. My dad was an insurance assessor and he worked for PMPA, which became Aviva, and my mum was a housewife. Our parents didn’t mind that we all went into creative fields, although the conventional wisdom at the time was to try to get a “steady job”. Luckily, we all became successful at what we wanted to do.
Although the house had four bedrooms, Paul and I ended up sharing a room. He used to drive me insane practising the drums, but I got used to it. Eventually, I was even able to go to sleep while he was playing the kit.
I used to do a lot of DJing in town, in places such as the Cathedral Club in Christchurch and McGonagle’s in South Anne Street. I used to promote gigs, too, and there seemed to be great bands around Dublin at the time, such as the Stars of Heaven and Cactus World News.
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For a while, I lived in an apartment in town and loved the idea of being able to go out all the time and then just have a short stagger home. The novelty of that wore off, however, and now I live quite near the old place again. My parents are still at No 25, so I go back quite a bit.
Alan Cantwell presents the 5.30pm news bulletin on TV3