The man who swam his way to stardom
Two months ago Des Cahill was a popular but ordinary RTE sports presenter: after DWTS, he’s a national treasure. But as Des reveals in a hilarious interview, at first he swore he wouldn’t do the show at all...
TWO months ago, Des Cahill could walk down the street unmolested. He was a popular RTÉ sports presenter, but hardly one of the station’s stars: well-known and well-liked, but not necessarily the first name to roll off the tongue when thinking of Montrose’s big hitters. Now, however, all that has changed. Des is a national superstar. He cannot nip out to the shops without someone waving at him from a car, or congratulating him on his amazing weight loss.
‘I did get recognised before this, but people wouldn’t usually say anything,’ reflects Des. ‘Now they shout from their cars because they see me with Karen.’
He’s constantly stopped for autographs and he’s achieved legendary status among young and old alike. Now TV producers are chasing Des and his dancing partner Karen Byrne to try and persuade them to do a series along the lines of Daniel and Majella O’Donnell’s warmhearted B&B road trips. The amazing thing is that Des has gained the love and affection of the viewing public not by winning Dancing With The Stars — or even coming close — but by being hopeless at dancing.
In particular, there was that moment when the ‘Dessie Swim’ started trending on Twitter as Des, dressed in full Austin Powers garb, moved in a seemingly sexual way underneath his much younger and prettier dancing partner. It was certainly bizarre, especially as Des later said he views Karen like a daughter.
And yet the most amazing thing is that if it had been up to Des, it would never have happened. As he sits in a Dublin hotel with Karen — who, in fairness, is responsible for much of his fame — he makes an extraordinary confession: when he was first asked to do Dancing With The Stars, he said no. Sorry, what? ‘I was approached to do it, and I wasn’t particularly interested in the idea — in fact, I definitely wasn’t interested, and I said no initially,’ Des recalls. ‘I went home and said it to my wife and she said, “maybe it would be good for you health-wise”. I have a spur [a calcium deposit] on my heel, and I figured that would be a problem too.
‘Then someone from the show said, “if we organise a class for you with a dancer, will you go and see what it’s like?” So that was that. Eventually, with Karen teaching me, I got something right.’
Little did Des know that within weeks, he would go from a popular but perfectly ordinary sports pundit to a national hero.
As one of RTÉ’s sports stalwarts, Des hasn’t previously had much elbow room for pizzazz.
He began his career as a newspaper reporter, writing initially for the Irish Press before moving to the Carlow Nationalist and The Kerryman in the 1970s.
In 1984, the siren song of Montrose lured him to RTÉ, and after a stint in hard news, he became a Sunday Sport reporter on RTÉ Radio 1. By 1987, he had taken over as presenter of the flagship programme from Jimmy Magee. Since then, he has been one of RTÉ Sport’s great behemoths.
Although, it seems, his popularity failed to transcend into the mainstream. ‘Before I met Des, I didn’t know of him,’ laughs Karen.
Now adored by housewives, highfived by their husbands, hailed a legend by teenagers and even drawing the favour of fussy kids, Des is Dancing With The Stars’ undisputed break-out star.
It’s all part of — to use reality TV parlance — the ‘journey’. Amid a galaxy of trained dancers and ex-boyband members, Des stood out for all the wrong reasons.
The judges didn’t hold back with the harsh comments and Des himself would be the first to admit that he looked every inch a man with two left feet.
But with Karen — a charming, saltof-the-earth Dub — as the glamorous and effervescent yin to Des’s endearingly awkward, slightly reserved yang, the pair started to charm audiences and, eventually, the judges.
With Des as the show’s underdog, the two were game as anything. There’s also an effortless, easy chemistry between them, no doubt built up after working in close proximity since last November.
And in a move that echoed the unlikely instance where MP Ed Balls became the breakout hero of this year’s BBC Strictly Come Dancing, Des and Karen went from being the show’s light relief to — up until last weekend at least — a very real threat to anyone eyeing pole position.
IT TRANSPIRES, too, that his game-for-a-laugh persona on the show was less accident and more design — masterminded by his wily dance partner.
‘Everything was entirely Karen’s strategy,’ Des explains. ‘In the last couple of weeks, she said, “Des, you’re not going to out-dance Dayl [Cronin]. You’re not Aoibhin [Garrihy]. So let’s roll with what we have.” She was so clever and intelligent about it.’
Karen agrees: ‘When I first knew I would be dancing with Des, I knew his dancing ability wouldn’t match some of the other contestants. I thought, what will make Des stand out? It’s TV, it’s entertainment and my sense was that he wouldn’t be remembered just for being nice. He’s a bit like me, he’d do anything for the craic. So he became the fun one.’
And so a have-a-go hero was born, as was one of Irish TV’s most enduring and outrageous moments: the ‘Dessie Swim’. Des shakes his head, laughing. ‘Oh God, that photo of the swim. When I die, that’s the photo they’re going to use!’
Karen interjects: ‘Truth be told, the “Shagadelic” Dessie Swim could have gone either way. I remember saying, “right, there is a step that’s a bit risky, and people will either go mental or love it. Are you willing to try?” He said, “Karen, I trust you”.’
‘Oh God, I didn’t fancy it at all,’ says Des, referring to the Austin Powers-inspired routine. ‘The big surprise was the reaction by 19 and 20-year-olds. I thought they’d be like, “ughh” but instead they were like, “legend”.’
It’s precisely this easy, familiar way with each other that helped make the Dessie Swim a prime slice of TV gold.
‘Oh, ours was the best relationship on the show, by some distance,’ notes Karen. ‘Being eliminated was like the worst thing ever. I even said at the time it was like someone dying. I watch reality shows like this all the time and I see people whingeing and bawling when they’re eliminated and I’m like, get over yourself! And then, I ended up being one of those people. I couldn’t help myself.’
Sure enough, their elimination in the tenth week of the hit show prompted a huge public outpouring of emotion. Des and Karen found themselves overwhelmed on the night, too, but not because they had their eye on pole position.
‘It’s nothing even to do with being booted out,’ says Karen. ‘It’s just that you see someone every day, and at that point I was thinking, “oh my God, I’m not going to see that person every day”.’
Des has struck up some unlikely friendships on the show, too, and hints that his popularity may well have something to do with the fact that few saw him as a threat. ‘The ones that are still there, are very much there to win it,’ he observes. ‘We got on with everyone because they didn’t see us as a threat. Being everyone’s friend is not necessarily a good way to be in a competition.’
Still, Karen and Des have made fast friends with some of their fellow contestants. ‘Aidan O’Mahony and Dayl Cronin have come up to my local on the Sunday nights,’ reveals
Des. ‘Denise McCormack has been up as well.’
Now, there’s the business of getting recognised in public to contend with. After meeting earlier in the week, KarCah went to place a bet during Cheltenham and, says Karen, ‘it was like the President was going in or something’.
‘They beep at us down the street. They tend to talk about your weight loss a bit,’ Karen says of Des shedding 3st during the run.
‘I couldn’t even enjoy it, I was so embarrassed by it all,’ admits Des, referring to the attention. ‘Honestly, only in the last week or two, I’ve learned to embrace it.’
It comes as no surprise to find that several doors of opportunity have swung open for Des as television offers have come flooding in.
‘A few people have mentioned us doing a show like the one that Daniel and Majella O’Donnell are doing,’ notes Des. ‘A couple of people spoke to Karen and I about doing a show together, but I’m happy, I like my sport. I loved doing this show though, and I was more myself on this programme because with the Sunday Game you have to be a bit more serious.’
Back in February, it was reported that Des might have to miss a show for health reasons after he sustained a knee injury. These days however, he’s fighting fit, and despite saying earlier this week that he was looking forward to ‘giving it socks’ in the pub, he has yet to party hard. ‘I was playing golf this week with the lads in Woodbrook Golf Club and I was on the water and lime. The lads were like, what’s all this about?’ It seems Dancing Dessie is taking this national treasure role seriously...
DANCING With the Stars is on Sundays at 6.30pm on RTE 1