Dáithí Ó Sé arrives into the hotel lobby a couple of minutes late and looking a little flustered. He's busy, a recurring theme that arises throughout the interview. Looking dapper in a well-fitting pinstripe suit, he possesses the kind of physique and motion of movement that one imagines would appeal to a casting director in charge of some ill-advised Hollywood rom com set in Ireland (that isn't Leap Year). Ó Sé would play the lovely but rough-around-the-edges Irish love interest, a blacksmith's son or something, forever throwing sheep over his shoulder, drinking pints, helping American tourists over stone walls and singing sean-nós in the corner of the pub with a twinkle in his eye. But that's all superficial presumptions, because that's not really what Dáithí Ó Sé is like, not that such perceptions do him any harm.

He announces that he's just won the Kerry Person of the Year award. Who did you beat, I ask. "I don't know. I'm just taking it on the chin because your own crowd are the first to turn against you, but not in this case. I'm delighted. I'll keep the wolves from the door for another while anyway."

Above anything else, Ó Sé is hard-working. You don't just go on TV and become a 'personality' overnight. There is a separation between television presenters and television personalities. And while much of that is down to how a person looks, acts, and whether their personality itself can work off-screen as well as on-screen, an awful lot of it is down to pure grafting. His last holiday was in early 2008. When we meet in February, his last day off was at Christmas.

Ó Sé works, and works hard, and there's a reason for that: he's resolutely secure with the insecurity of his position. Because of that, he finds it hard to turn down gigs "No is probably the hardest word I'd have to say," he admits, "But I'm under no illusion at all that this is going to carry on for the rest of my life. I have no doubt that somebody else will come along in a year or two, three at a stretch, and then it will be, 'okay we don't want your man any more, we'll throw this to the new kid on the block'. So I have to make hay while the sun shines."

It's a very pragmatic approach, one at odds with the usual ego and image-conscious world of television personalities. "I think everybody runs their course and I think I will as well. I think people get sick and tired. Other people come along and will get asked to do the jobs that I'm doing," Ó Sé concludes, before rattling off a couple of other things he's involved with (Rose of Tralee, Make A Wish foundation, Your Country Your Call.)

Ó Sé is not a careerist television presenter. From Feothanach, beyond Dingle in Kerry, he worked at several different things initially – a circus ringmaster, a ferryman in the Blaskets, a bouncer in Chicago, and eventually a teacher before the opportunity to be on TG4 "came into my lap" 10 years ago. He became the weatherman and continuity announcer for the station before going on to make documentaries, talk shows and one-off programmes with the station, covering everything from Route 66 to Irish summer festivals, general chat, music and so on, eventually realising himself as the golden boy gaelgeoir and general heartthrob.

His transition from that TG4 base to something with more of a nationwide appeal happened with Charity You're A Star in 2006, RTE's stab at a celebrity singing competition. Gaining a profile outside his TG4 day job (which he still has) soon begat other gigs, launches and openings, and soon bigger things came his way: becoming an ambassadors for charities, securing an association with the Rose of Tralee and edging Hector Ó h'Eochagáin out of the surprisingly large 'most important people to invite to the races' category.

And then bigger TV gigs came about – he went to the US each summer to record various series for TG4, from road trips to specials on music and film. In order to keep going, he has to keep going. "I get tired when I stop, when I take a day off. But if I keep going..."

His latest high-profile gig is as a judge on the All Ireland Talent Show for the second series, a critically derided but hugely popular programme in terms of viewing figures. On the programme, Ó Sé acts as a cheerleader and mentor for 'The West', complete with winks and fist pumping. "The Talent Show is huge," he acknowledges. It doesn't hurt that one of his acts won last year's series either.

One gets a sense of tirelessness talking to Ó Sé. The amount of spadework he puts in is quite admirable. As a result of his relentless schedule, relationships suffer. Ó Sé's relationship with his girlfriend of two years ended last year.

"I was going out with somebody up until last August. I suppose it took its toll being away two months in the summer. We were going out for about two years. It's a long time to be away. I was working hard all the time, she was working hard as well, it seemed to fizzle out I suppose." That's sad. "Yeah, at the time it was. I suppose you just have to move on. As I say, the position I'm in at the moment, I definitely feel someone will come along in a couple of years time, and I'll have plenty of time for relationships then, but at the moment, no."

But you're still going to Copper Face Jacks? "You have to go to Copper Face Jacks." On the pull? "I haven't pulled anything in a long time in Copper Face Jacks. No, no, no. The last time I pulled in Copper Face Jacks was 1997, when Kerry beat Mayo in the All Ireland. I think she was from Mayo as well," he giggles. "I crossed the divide. But it was good fun."

Apart from Copper Face Jacks (he was there a few weeks ago, he admits rather sheepishly) there are other perks on Planet Dáithí. His friends enjoy allowing him to blag into horse-racing events and not paying into clubs. He gets bought so many pints. "There would be porter coming out your ears half the time," (if he drank them all, that is) and he gets to take a long awaited holiday in April before he heads off for an eight-week stint shooting in the US again.

As for time off, it's hard to get a lot done in the brief respites he earns. He had a day off last week, "so you try and wash all your clothes, you try to do all the shopping, you try to get drunk, you try and get everything into the whole thing, well, not getting drunk, but go for a couple of drinks. I just like chilling out."

He eats a lot of monkfish and seems to have quite a spontaneous approach to exercise. "I like going for walks around Galway. I jumped into the sea yesterday, just to try and clear the cobwebs." But it's freezing. "It was great, I just hopped in at Salthill. I walked about five miles first and the sweat was pumping out of me, so I threw off the clothes and in I went," he pauses, "naked." I must looked shocked because he backtracks, "not really, I did have a pair of shorts on." You're lucky the Daily Mail wasn't there I say. "I don't think they'd have much interest in me jumping in and out of the water." You'd be surprised. "Well, they must be really stuck," he smirks, and his phone rings. It's Newstalk on about something or other.

"Look," he says when he gets off the phone and we talk about the future and the nature of his job, "Babs Keating [Tipperary hurling legend] once said a pat on the back is six inches from a kick up the arse. In television you find that out very quickly. One minute you're fantastic and then you're walking down the street and someone will shout 'you're shite'. There will be two minutes between both comments," he says leaning forward as if to stress the point.

"What is a TV personality? I'm not in this to become famous or to become rich. It pays my mortgage, it pays for the petrol in my car, it pays for a holiday. That's it. It doesn't mean anything else to me; it's a job. You do gigs for TG4 and you write in the paper, that's your job. To me I don't get the whole thing to be on TV to be famous or to be in the paper. It's a job for me, and I see it as nothing else. I never wanted to be famous, I never wanted to be on television. I wanted to be a teacher, which I was. This opportunity came into my lap and I chanced it for the craic, how hard could it be? It was supposed to be for a year – 10 years later I'm still bluffing. Genuinely, that's it. It doesn't mean anything else to me."

Right. That's that then. As for the future, he isn't eager to plan far ahead, only looking at what's immediately scheduled (which probably takes him to the end of the year.) Apart from that, it's up to the gods. And with that over, he legs it out to do something else. Two elderly women who were standing up to leave the lobby stop in their tracks. "That's him, isn't it," one says to the other, "Dáithí!" They titter like school girls, "is that Dáithí?" they ask. It is, I say. "I thought so," one says, and they both look very pleased with themselves.