RTE star Derek Mooney has opened up on living with tinnitus describing the ringing in his ear like a constant gas leak.
The Dublin broadcaster has worked in RTE for more than 30 years and said he hopes his condition does not deteriorate.
Derek, 56, told the Irish Sunday Mirror: “I have a constant noise in my head. It feels like an industrial sound.
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“At times it feels like you’re in a nightclub and you come out and your ears are ringing, it varies from that to a constant gas leak.
“I hope it doesn’t get worse.”
Derek has lived with tinnitus in his left ear for the past 20 years. He said: “Nobody really knows what causes it.
“Because if they knew what caused it they might be able to fix it. There’s a company who brought out a device called Lenire.
“I’ve never tried it because I would be afraid to make it any worse than it is.
“At the moment it’s proper bad. Ninety per cent of the time I do notice it and it’s irritating, you know, when it’s distracting.
“It can make you a little bit irritable, it’s just a constant noise.”
Trying acupuncture did not help, he revealed.
Derek added: “I remember years ago going to an acupuncturist.
“The guy was putting all these needles into me and the room was so quiet. I said to him I can’t be in a quiet room.
“My mind was focusing on the silence and the noise in my head was intense. It’s when I get stressed too, the noise level just shoots up.
“I avoid quiet rooms and stressful situations because when I get stressed, I have this spring which escalates in my head, which is horrendous.”
Nature enthusiast Derek is flying the flag for conservation in a two-part series Back From The Brink which starts on RTE One this evening.
From the return of the wolf to the barn owl, nature conservationists throughout Europe are fighting back to protect wildlife and biodiversity.
Derek, who was presented with an honorary doctorate in science last year from UCC, said the message of the programme
is positive.
He said: “This programme is about the people and the animals, or the habitat or the environment that they’re trying to protect.
“We have a biodiversity crisis. We have an issue with global warming and climate change.
“We already have issues, flooding, catastrophes, deforestation. We’re losing habitats and because of that we’re losing species.
“We’re talking about being in the middle of the sixth mass extinction. This is the first one we’re responsible for. It’s too much to take on.
“Our approach is, here’s the background, now look at what people are doing, sit back, relax and enjoy.” The series features stories that will inspire.
Derek added: “We have stories in Ireland, like the barn owl that’s on
the increase.
“It still suffered a massive decline, but there’s hope as numbers are now on the rise.
“It’s because farmers, where they can have stopped using rodenticide, which is used to poison the rats.
“The barn owls feed on the rats and then suffer from secondary poisoning and die. When the farmers stop using
the rodenticide, the owls take care of the rats and they live.
“Farmers put up nest boxes for the owls which are a suitable habitat for the barn owls to live on their land.”
The series sees species coming out of extinction.
He said: “We go to a scientific project in Germany in Berkhausen where this group of people are incubating eggs of the Northern bald ibis which was extinct in that part of the world for 400 years.
“It’s an ugly looking yoke only a mother could love it.
“They’ve taken the eggs from birds that were in captivity, put them into incubators, hatched them, and then the people who work on this project, one person in particular, a woman called Corinne Esterer, became their kind of bird mum.
“So the bird’s mother is essentially a human.
“Birds will imprint on anything that’s in front of them as soon as they come out of
the egg.
“She rears them, feeds them and gets them up to adulthood.
“She shows them how to fly their natural migration across the Alps into Italy by flying a microlight and they follow her. Now they’re at the stage where natural born ibis’ are flying that migration route and flying back again.
“It’s a success story.”
Derek’s nest of blue tits, which he live-streamed, became a phenomenon with thousands of nature fans tuning in.
He added: “My blue tit live-stream was huge, I even have a T-shirt saying, ‘I love blue tits’. We started with jackdaws with a company called Wild Ireland and that went viral and then I continued with the blue tits in my own garden.
“It’s just incredible. We sometimes try to be too clever in television
and radio but if you bring it back to basics and live-stream a nest, it’s simple and you don’t need to say anything.”
Derek, who insisted he’s not in a relationship, likes to keep his private life under wraps.
In his daily life he consciously tries to reduce his carbon footprint.
He said: “I don’t drive as much as I used to. I take the Luas as much as possible. We don’t have a proper connected joint system in this country for public transport.
“That’s the reason a lot of people are forced to use their own private transport.
“I try to go one day when I don’t
eat meat and I don’t throw away as much as I used to. I go through the freezer to make sure it’s used up before I buy more.”
Meanwhile, commenting on RTE’s new Late Late Show host Patrick Kielty,
he said: “I met Patrick a couple of times
over the years, he’s a very bright guy. He’s very savvy. He’s no fool.
“Ryan did it his way, Pat and Gaybo too, Patrick will have his own way, whether he lasts a year or 10. I think he’s a good choice, but certainly out of the blue. If you’d said to me, ‘Who do you think will get it?’, I would have said Marty Morrissey.
“Marty has mass appeal, he was training to be a doctor, he’s very knowledgeable, a bright man.
“But equally I think Patrick is an inspired choice, an excellent broadcaster and very calm.”
Back From The Brink airs on RTE One tomorrow at 6.30pm.
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