Martin Guilfoyle is a DJ, model, actor and one of the newest stand-in presenter’s on Dublin’s hit radio station, Spin 103.8. However, Martin’s promising radio career started out in a local community radio station up in Lucan called Liffey Sound FM.

When I walk into the studio to start the interview, I hear Martin before I see him. Martin has a very confident and friendly voice which represents his personality perfectly.  

Now at the age of twenty three there is so much that Martin has achieved in so many areas. What’s more impressive about all this is that Martin is just out of college. As he has just graduated with an honours degree in Business, French and Spanish in D.I.T.

This would come as a shock to most people, as you would presume with his experience in radio and interests in other media related areas that Martin studied media in college.

“No, I have never studied radio, media, Dj-ing nothing.”

Surprisingly it was working in a café and listening to Spin 103.8 on the radio that got Martin considering a career in radio.

“I got obsessed with Spin at a very early age while working in a café, they always had the radio on and one day I got it in my head that I wanted to work for Spin and that was it”

Look into it he did, by ringing around a number of local radio stations. One of the stations he contacted was Liffey Sound FM. Which led him to become one of the stations most popular presenters.  This taste for community radio made Martin hungry for more, and he tried his luck by requesting to do some work experience at Spin 1038, Dublin’s most popular music station among people from the age of fifteen to thirty four. During his work experience, Spin clearly saw some potential and offered him a job as a Spini. The Spini’s are the promotional team for the station, they drive around to all major events in Dublin handing out free goodies and loads of cool prizes. Martin is also now a resident DJ for Cube nightclub in Arklow.

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Not only has Martin evolved into the world of radio but he has also made a stab at acting. He did this by making a profile for himself on movieextras.ie . Out of this he has gotten calls to work on RTE’s Fair City as a barman and just recently, he landed a role in the upcoming television series ‘Titanic Blood and Steel’.  In the series he plays a butler to one of the key characters named Carlton. Martin has also worked alongside the likes of Jedward for their ‘Sup’ campaign for three mobile.

So what does Martin see in his future in terms of his career?

“Ok, the plan is I am going to get some kind of qualification in media. I’m going to do an eight week TV presenting course- that’s the plan.  Unless something comes up before then because I did have an opportunity to work on the Den before, but I ended up going on an Erasmus for the year. So to get back in there I think I will need some sort of a qualification. I want to head down the route of TV so radio will be a help – Television would be the plan. ”

With all this extra experience under his belt I asked Martin what his advice would be for students trying to break into the media industry.

“You need to be willing to do absolutely anything! So you need to be willing to work for free, twenty four hours in a row if you have to. There were days were I worked in a café for seven hours, went and did Chinese deliveries for four hours, would go DJ for four hours straight after, got two hours sleep and went into Spin the next morning and did a morning show! So it has to be done. You need to be willing to do that and do it for free. I know its clichéd but hard work will get you where you want to be, but you need to have a bit of passion as well. A bit of drive definitely! ”

Video of this interview can be seen above^^^^^^^^^

Emily Keegan