It will be another busy weekend covering Gaelic games for Valerie Wheeler – but they all are at this time of year.

Monday to Friday, the Charleville native presents the breakfast show, along with Ed Roche, on Limerick radio station Spin South West; then at the weekends she is Dublin-bound, providing reports or sideline coverage for RTÉ.

It’s certainly a full-on experience – like almost anyone working in sports journalism, it’s a passion and so the enjoyment outweighs any drawbacks. Not that it was part of a grand plan, as Valerie outlines.

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“It happened by accident,” she says.

“I went to college and became a pre-school teacher and I was working in the creche in UCC for a few years. I had a done a bit on the promotion side for Spin South West and that made me wonder if it was worth giving radio a shot, so I went back to college in CIT – they had a broadcasting course which I did by night and I ended getting placement at RedFM out of it.

“I had a massive interest in sport since I was young, being brought to so many games by my father, and obviously, hurling is massive in the area where I’m from.

“I was on the breakfast show in there, but I got talking to Ruairí O’Hagan and Lisa Lawlor in the sports department about my passion for sport and I got a sports internship for around six months, going in every weekend and learning the ropes.”

An All-Ireland ladies’ final win for Cork was her first experience of Croke Park – “If you listen back, I nearly sound as out of breath as the players!” she laughs – and then, having joined Spin South West, she was instrumental in kick-starting the station’s sports coverage.

As part of the same stable as Newstalk, that led to work for Off The Ball, which in turn resulted in work for RTÉ.

“I was supposed to start The Sunday Game in the summer of 2020, and then of course, COVID came along,” Valerie says.

“You’d be thinking the chance was gone, but thankfully they got in touch again when things did get going in October of that year.”

I love the breakfast show. You’re up at the crack of dawn, but you kind of get used to it because then you have the whole day to yourself

Since then, the summers have been seven-day-a-week affairs as she balances a double life.

“I love the breakfast show,” Valerie says.

“You’re up at the crack of dawn, but you kind of get used to it because then you have the whole day to yourself.

“It’s a lovely show and the listeners are great craic – you wouldn’t be coming to us for anything serious!

“A lot of people listening to the breakfast show probably don’t realise that I do RTÉ at the weekends, and then people who see me pitchside probably aren’t aware that I do a breakfast show during the week.”

The weekends then are a mix of compiling reports for roundups – a lot of work can go into a two-minute package – as well as sideline reporting as the camogie season reaches its business end.

“You watch the games, pick out the highlights, sit down with an editor and go through it, you make sure all the graphics are correct,” she says.

“I absolutely love being out pitchside, because you get to meet loads of people and it’s such a privilege to be able to get the reaction of players after winning.”

A natural pause is coming as Valerie and her husband Gavin Young prepare to welcome their first child at the end of August – though the return is already being planned.

“That’ll put an oul’ stop in my tracks for a while,” she laughs.

“It’s worked out perfectly though, I’ll be back just in time for the league.”

Such is the way for someone working in sports journalism – everything else has to take a back seat – but Valerie is grateful for the support that comes from those closest to her.

“I think everyone has got to the stage where it’s, ‘Look, we’ll invite her and if she shows up, she shows up.’

“Honestly, I can’t thank my friends enough that they have stuck around because I can’t imagine it’s easy to put up with the fact that I can’t commit to anything because I don’t know where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing.

“The support is amazing – already I have friends and family offering to take the baby on Sundays.

“You just couldn’t do without it,” she concludes.