Winston Churchill, the former British prime minister, has been a hero of mine for an incredibly long time, and one of the reasons is that there are certain parallels between my life and his, which I find very interesting. One thing I learned from him is that it's not over until it's over, and you can still make it later on in life if you're good enough.

It was through my father that I first heard of Churchill, and you can imagine that as Ireland had only been an independent country for 30 years, it wasn't really popular to support anything English in the 1940s in Cork. My father was an extraordinary man, who was very Anglo in his beliefs, probably because all of his antecedents had been in the British army, and he appreciated the good things that Britain had done.

One of the areas where there's a parallel between us is that Churchill didn't perform well at school, and neither did I. People might consider it strange, given what I'm doing now, but I was quite shy back then. I can remember being afraid to stand up and speak in the debating society at Presentation College in Cork, and being lost in admiration for Eoghan Harris, and had the courage to stand up and spout away.

Churchill didn't really speak in school either, but his difficulty was compounded by the fact that he had a stammer.

Churchill went into the army, and then became a journalist, and was captured in the Boer war in 1899. He managed to escape, which kind of made him a name back in England, so he went into politics. He went to different political parties, and was seen as a bit of an opportunist. As first lord of the admiralty, he made a complete balls of the landing at Gallipoli in World War One, and was sacked, and what inspired me about him was that he had failed and been written off many times, but always came back again. And really when his career in politics was just about over, Churchill suddenly had his finest moment. The crucial turning point was during World War Two, when Chamberlain was prime minister and had made a bags of it. The British were defeated at Dunkirk, and suddenly there was nobody to turn to but Churchill. When Britain didn't have bullets or bombs or guns, he almost singlehandedly took on Germany, who hadn't experienced defeat at that point, with words.

There were parallels there with me too, because I have been sacked from different jobs in rugby, and have also been written off many times. I was at a point when it seemed that my working life had been a failure, and it was all over, done and dusted, and I was never going to make it. Then, suddenly, I got my break into television when they were stuck one day and turned to me, and while Newstalk weren't stuck for someone, they said, "Why don't we try your man?" and suddenly I got a break in radio too.

What Churchill was able to do, at a very lonely and fearful time for the British people, was that when the lights were out and bombs were falling and people were sitting around their radios, his voice was coming through, motivating and inspiring them. I hope people don't think I'm being crass, because I'm certainly no Winston Churchill, but when I'm in the studio, I think of people listening in their motor cars, or alone in their homes, or maybe going through a hard time, and I try to be their company. Churchill didn't have an outstanding voice, and neither do I, and he wasn't an attractive man in terms of size or shape, but when he started to speak, you forgot everything else, and I'd really love to think that when I speak, people forget about Sthose other aspects of me too.

Having grown up during the war years, the thing that impressed me most about Churchill was the great phrases he used, such as, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat." He spent ages trying to get the perfect sentence down in terms of the right words. I imagine he probably started off with a basic sentence that said, "It was a great period in British history, " and eventually worked his way up to, "if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'" Like Churchill, I also see language as being incredibly powerful, as it can change people's views, and I work incredibly hard at making the words fit perfectly. He taught me that preparation is the key to success, and I often drive along, conducting imaginary interviews in the car, which often turn out much better than the ones I actually do on the radio!

I also think of Churchill fondly, because the fact that he didn't give up inspired me not to when the chips were down. The other thing we have in common is suffering from spells of depression, which he used to call the 'black dog', and he was there in my head periodically during my dark times. There are some differences between the two of us though, because he smoked big cigars, loved whiskey, and didn't seem to have much interest in girls, whereas I don't smoke at all, can't stand whiskey, and think females are the best invention ever!

'The Right Hook', weekdays 4.30-7pm, Newstalk