RTÉ News and Current Affairs broadcaster Katie Hannon took a trip down memory lane on Friday's Late Late Show as she told host Ryan Tubridy about how she witnessed "the birth of Boyzone" in her early days as a social diarist and showbiz reporter.
Hannon recounted that she got the job by accident rather than by design.
"I was very young. It was one of my early forays in print journalism, and I kind of totally fell into it - I didn't ever intend to do it," she said.
"I did a story about Leeson Street because I had some friends who were working the door there. One of them was Don Wycherley, the actor, actually.
"They thought in the Evening Herald, where I was freelancing, that I knew things about Dublin nightlife that I actually didn't know at all - but I just rolled with it!
"So I got the job as the social diarist, and it was great fun. But, you know, for the short haul, not for the long haul... [I was] Pretty intimidated by the whole setup, really!"
Hannon saluted Louis Walsh as being her best source back in the day.
"This is pre-Boyzone, right?" she continued.
"This is, like, early days Louis. He was the best source of gossip in all showbiz - bar none! To the degree that he would actually say, 'I could never read the Nine O'Clock News because I would turn up at five to nine going, 'I can't wait to tell you!' And that was Louis. And he really was - he was a brilliant man to know if you needed to fill two pages of the Evening Herald every day."
"Boyzone came along - and I was there at the birth of Boyzone!" she then revealed. "Ronan Keating has never really given me the true credit I deserve, I feel, on this front!
"We were around there at the start. I was at those early auditions. They all trooped in and sang Careless Whisper. It was brilliant - it was an amazing turnaround for Louis and, obviously, look where it got him!"
Back in the present day, Hannon's new programme, Upfront with Katie Hannon, begins on RTÉ One and the RTÉ Player on Monday, 30 January.
"I'm really excited about it," she said.
"It's a kind of a nod to Questions and Answers, but the audience won't be just in the studio. We'll be talking to the audience across social media, across the country during the week. We'll be taking questions from our wider audience, there'll be a WhatsApp line where you can call in.
"The whole idea is that it's a national conversation. We will have other strands to it. We will have a weekly podcast as well. We will have written content, debate that will be carried on during the week online.
"But the main thing we want to get out there is that, if you want to be in this audience, if you want to be part of this conversation, find us online. We're at rte.ie/upfront.
"We will be following the news agenda to some degree, but we want it to be more... I mean, I love a good row as much as the next person - and I'm hoping that we will have robust debate, we will absolutely be encouraging that in every way - but we also want to bring some light into it as well. We want people to come into that audience, and we will be giving the space for people to tell their own stories."
