Born as Shane Keogan in
Drogheda,
County Louth, Ó hEochagáin attended
St Patrick's Classical School in
Navan at the same time as
Tommy Tiernan and
Dylan Moran. He first came to the attention of Irish viewers with his travelogue programme
Amú on
TG4. After a few series with TG4, he created and hosted two primetime series:
Only Fools Buy Horses, which took a satirical look at the world of race-horse ownership; and
Hanging with Hector, which featured Ó hEochagáin spending time with Irish celebrities. One episode featured Ó hEochagáin with
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. Others included a
penalty shootout with goalkeeper
Shay Given at
Newcastle United; taking on
Ken Doherty in snooker; and, most recently, spending time with
Aidan O'Brien, one of the world's most successful race horse trainers. He has won multiple
Irish Film and Television Awards (IFTAs) for his shows, Tommy Tiernan. Ó hEochagáin worked as a mechanical effects assistant on films such as "The Haunting of Hell House" and "Knocking On Death's Door". He has also appeared in advertisements for
Paddy Whiskey and
Horse Racing Ireland. Ó hEochagáin has filmed multiple series for TG4 In the 2010 autumn schedule of
RTÉ 2fm, Ó hEochagáin was selected as the new presenter of
the breakfast show, from 7 to 9am, starting on 4 October 2010, and broadcast from the
RTÉ studios in Galway. The show was axed in December 2013, and in September 2014 Ó hEochagáin vowed that he would "never work for 2FM again". In January 2013 he presented a new four-part series called
Hector Goes on
RTÉ 1. Part One of the series, ‘Hector Goes Holy’, sees him discussing the role of the
Catholic Church in the contemporary
Republic of Ireland (he didn't cover
Northern Ireland, or
Ulster more generally, in the episode). Part Two, called ‘Hector Goes Traveller’, has him discovering the Traveller lifestyle today in Ireland. Part Three, ‘Hector Goes Country’, sees him in the company of
Mike Denver, and discovering the world of Country and Western music in Ireland. The final episode in the series, ‘Hector Goes Hunting’, sees him in the world of hunting and shooting in Ireland. The series was broadcast on RTÉ 1 and reached over 1.8 million viewers. A new series of Hector Goes started airing in March 2014. The first episode was called
Hector Goes Fishing, and the second episode aired on 10 March and was called
Hector goes Courtin. Hector Previously presented his own show on Today FM ( called Hector’s Sunday Sitting Room covered for
Ian Dempsey on
Today FM during 2015. In 2019 he presented
Hector USA - Ó Chósta go Cósta, where he takes on a road trip in the US from Coast to Coast, across the
Southern States from
Savannah on the Atlantic to
San Diego on the Pacific, road-tripping from
Georgia through
Alabama,
Mississippi and
Louisiana into
Texas,
New Mexico and
Arizona before finishing up on the Pacific seaboard in
California, covering 8 states and more than 5,000 miles on the road. He presented
The Tommy, Hector and Laurita Podcast from September 2020 until it finished in April 2024. In November 2024, his non-fiction book,
The Irish Words You Should Know, won at the
2024 Irish Book Awards. ==References==