Or has he? And that was my number one question when I met the red-haired Navan man.

Surely there's more than one side to everyone?

But so adept is 'The Hector', as he refers to himself, at projecting a one-dimensional image that I suspected it was going to be difficult to scratch the surface. And I was right. Meeting Hector is like meeting his television persona. He's dressed casually as always in a shirt and jeans. His red hair looks the same, maybe cut a little shorter than usual and he's wearing his trademark earring.

As I approach him in the hotel lounge, he bumps into a business man he seems to know and just like that he's surrounded by suits. "Alright Hector?" Their voices are raised in admiration and jest. "Got any tips Hector?" One of them knocks him with his elbow and they all laugh. Hector rises to the occasion. "Well come here and I'll tell you boys. . ." He's in his element; playing to the crowd and the jostling group of wellclad business men love it.

He tells me afterwards that there was a meeting to promote the Galway Races in the same hotel and it was a coincidence he bumped into them. Of course, they all know him from his dealings with race horse Traverse, The Only Fools Buy Horses television series and the syndicate of the same name.

But then everybody in Ireland knows the redhead who first appeared on our screens over 10 years ago as a TG4 travel presenter. Since then, he's become a national institution. But where exactly did he come from?

Hector, 36, was born in Navan, Co Meath, one of three boys.

"I was a messer in school and now I make my living out of messing, " he volunteers when asked about his past, explaining that he went to the same school as comedians Tommy Tiernan and Dylan Moran and spawning theories that there was something in the Navan water.

Later he attended Trinity College where he studied Irish for a year but failed as he was more interested in 'the craic'.

He fled to the Aran Islands for a while, lived in the Basque region of Spain, where he met his now wife Dympna, and eventually ended up in Galway, where he worked as a mechanical effects assistant on films such as The Haunting of Hell House and Knocking On Death's Door. After that, he landed a job with TG4 on travel series Amu, and, well, the rest is history.

Today he's promoting the second five-part series of Hanging with Hector, which recently started on RTE and he's bursting with enthusiasm about it. Featuring comedians Dara O' Briain, Deirdre O' Kane and Jon Kenny, Ireland footballer Shay Given and jockey Johnny Murtagh, the show promises to be as good as the last one.

"Unlike other talk shows, we don't sit down with the guest and talk to them, " he explains in his Navan accent. "I hate that, " he shakes his head. "Because they're just looking for exposes and that's not my style. Instead, I go into the celebrity's world, hang out with them for a few days and get to know them that way. I ask the kind of questions you'd ask if you met them in the pub."

As a result, he claims celebrities are more willing to appear on his show than they would be otherwise. "Take Shay Given for example . . . he has never done any television work before, he's quite a shy man and it took me a whole year to get hold of him. But he'd seen the last series of Hanging with Hector. He liked it so he agreed to do this one."

Hector's unorthodox style of interviewing leads him to engage in a whole series of unlikely situations. With Jon Kenny, he sold a bullock in the local mart, attended a cookery class and the opening of a jazz club. With Deirdre O' Kane, who used to be an all-Ireland Irish dancing champion, he visited a feis in Finglas and with Dara O' Braoin he appeared on the Johnathan Ross show.

For each 26-minute show, up to eight hours of footage was filmed. He enjoyed every moment of it. "The important thing is to entertain myself first and foremost because otherwise it comes across as fake, " he says. "So I chose people I wanted to hang out with; people I knew would be up for a bit of craic."

Given that he's very much a man's man, it's interesting that only one woman appears in the show's line-up. "That's just the way it happened but I have to say I enjoyed hanging out with Deirdre O' Kane; she's a serious messer. It took me a while to get her measure and she was sussing me out too but once we got to know each other, we had lots of fun."

Hector is, many would agree, the jammiest man in Ireland.

When he's not meeting interesting people, he's travelling the world. Last November, he made the Chasing the Lions documentary with Risteard Cooper of Apres Match fame in New Zealand. Having filmed Hector san Aifric last year, he's now lining up another series of Amu to be filmed in June. But does he ever get tired of waiting around in airports and having to be away from home so much?

"Certainly not, " he says with emphasis. "The travelling is fantastic. Put it this way, I could be a long-distance lorry driver or a worker on an oil rig, then I'd be away from home a lot more. As it is, I'm usually abroad for about six weeks at a time and then I come home and chill out. When I am home I'm very much a home-bird. I like cooking, gardening, going to the gym and hanging out with my mates in Galway over a few pints. I love living in Galway because it's the San Francisco of Ireland, " he adds. "The west is the best. . . Galway's a nice, cool, relaxing place to live and I have a lot of friends down there."

Hector is married to Dympna . . . a lecturer of Spanish at NUI Galway and the couple have two little boys . . . Rian aged two, and Shane, just two months old. The presenter says that fatherhood hasn't changed him. "It's just a question of adapting; marriage was one chapter in my life and fatherhood is another. It means less sleep, more nappies and a lot more Sudocrem, " he jokes. "I'm 36 now. I have my own house and two sons; I'm doing all the right things. I didn't feel ready to have babies until now.

"You know I work with the same crew on all my shows and we know each other well. These days, when I get to Dublin airport to go somewhere the topic of conversation is invariably about babies. We're a bunch of lads sitting on the plane talking about changing nappies, chapped nipples and powdered milk, " he laughs. "Now who'd have ever thought?"

He's been married for 19 years, he says. "Actually no, that's wrong, I met my wife when I was three. She was two years old.

We met in a night club in Longford. I asked her out, we shifted for a while and then I asked her to go with mef" He laughs, looking for a reaction. He's on a role now, playing the comedian, which he frequently does when asked a personal question. Because although Hector is all too ready to promote his work, he's an expert at fielding questions about his life off the television. Hector is not just a clever presenter and interviewer but a maestro at marketing. And the product? Himself.

He will answer questions about his personal life but he doesn't like to. So what's his wife like? I venture. "She's my best friend, the other half of the operation, I'd be lost without her, " he says, becoming more serious. "In fact, it was while lying in bed with my missus that I came up with the idea for the new series. She thought of the name."

Now that he's a father, Hector and Dympna rarely get to attend the parties which come with being a celebrity, but Hector doesn't seem to mind. "I come to Dublin about twice a year to go out but only as long as I can bring the missus. It's an opportunity for her to dress up, put on the fake tan and the stilettos and we get a chauffeur-driven car. I do it for her as much as anything because I want to spoil her and she deserves it.

"It's no fun having a hangover when you have babies, " he adds. "Pregnancy is a great leveller. That's why I'm trying to get pregnant this year. I can see it now . . . the new show, 'Hector gets Pregnant'.

He's off again but I rein him in and ask if things in general are going well. "I'm in a really nice position at the moment because people like my shows, " he confides. "You know I had a 10-year-old boy come up to me on my way on the street today and say, 'Go on the Lions, Hector'; only this morning someone at the airport spoke to me in Irish and, well, people are always stopping me and asking for tips for a horse."

Being so popular, would he ever consider a career in politics? His face says it all. "Not a chance! What would I go into politics for? As Bertie said, 'Hector for Taoiseach and Bertie for Hector'. That was Bertie's conundrum, " he looks bemused as he refers to his meeting with Bertie Ahern on last season's show.

"I'm not interested in politics. I'm interested in people and places. I'm interested in meeting someone selling something on the street in Vietnam or hanging out in the Amazon Jungle or the desert of Ethiopia. I just like talking to people and I don't change from one person to the next. I'm the same when I meet the Taoiseach, a famous sports personality or someone in Bangkok."

So is that the secret of his success? "I think so, " he nods his head and flashes a grin as he stands up to see me off. "Now that was a nice chat."