Remembering Uaneen Fitzsimons, 25 Years On

in this personal reflection, RTÉ producer Rory Cobbe remembers his friend and colleague, the late broadcaster Uaneen Fitzsimons, 25 years after her death.

22 November 2000 is a date that resonates wiht any of us who knew Uaneen Fitzsimons. There are many of us who shared the pain of her death that day,on a stretch of road between Limerick and Dublin.

She had just returned from a holiday in Australia. She loved it there.On the Monday, as usual, she came to Cork to record links for RTÉ2’s late-night music show No Disco. She was buzzing, looking forward to the next few months. She had been seeing someone and it was going well.

On the Tuesday she travelled to Limerick for an event, which went well. The next day, with a train strike under way and needing to get back to Dublin for work, she accepted a lift. the car she was travelling in was hit head-on by an articulated truck travelling on the wrong side of the road.

Uaneen had been working at the BBC in Belfast before she took the journey to Dublin to study media in DCU.

She was working in the Ormond Multimedia Center on the quays when I met her. It was a venue many people of a certain age will remember as a dance club and live venue. Music was everything to Uaneen and to many of our generation; it defined us. She loved being involved.

Around that time, the presenter of the show, Donal Dineen, had moved from No Disco to Radio Ireland. I had been helping Donal put No Disco together and it was decided we should find a new presenter.

No Disco was a video clip show, but for alternative music, the kind that was not broadcast in the mainstream. Irish bands had the chance to have their videos played, and we interviewed bands and musicians who came to play in Ireland that you would not frequently see on TV.

Colm O’Callaghan and Donal had started the show on half a shoestring in the earliest days of RTÉ Cork. It had a cult following. It was the days before the internet and no one had heard of streaming or Facebook.

The presenter of No Disco was not just someone who could read a script to camera. They acted like a curator. They had to have a point of view, love all sorts of music, and have a desire to hear new music and spread the word.Donal was a hard act to follow.

Uaneen went for the audition. She was in a very strong field of people who fit

Publication Date: 2025/11/22 18:58:12