It's shortly after 7am on a grey, drizzly Friday, and the sleepy streets of Galway slowly awaken from a fitful slumber – Galway was never much of a morning city, after all, and the previous night, from what we witnessed, was a bit of a mad one. Somewhere above the city, however, from an RTÉ Radio studio situated a mere stone's throw from the main thoroughfare Shop Street, Hector Ó hEochagáin is already in full effect. And make no mistake: Hector in full effect is a sight to behold. For the past few weeks, the original Navan Man and honorary son of Galway (of some 17 years) has been hosting 2FM's new morning programme; to the casual observer, he's well on his way to making the slot his own.

"I like to think that the show is a combination of a lot of little mad bits," says the presenter afterwards. "If it works, it's a celebration of being Irish. That's why, on a Thursday morning, I go 'RTÉ and Hector are proud to announce the following births…' We celebrate 12 young kids coming into this country – because it's a great country. Right now, we're suffocating in this shite that a few people have caused for the lot of us. And I know it's easy for me to say that, because I have a job.

"But I've been there. And twice a week I'm walking past the biggest dole queues I've ever seen in Galway. And politicians have no idea what they are going through. They have no concept of the reality of people's lives. So the least I can do, then, is to say 'Let's have a little fun…' And people are listening."

To date, it's perhaps the least likely items that draw an impassioned response, such as the host's penchant for eschewing the 2FM playlist in favour of the occasional solid gold trad classic. "A fella was on the other week," says Hector, "and he said 'Thanks a million for playing The Wing.' The Wing – Stockton's Wing… I love that. I always say that this stuff was here long before X Factor, and it'll be here long afterwards."

Plenty of ground is covered over the course of two hectic hours on Breakfast With Hector, as our MC flits from one fluffy item to the next with élan and a boundless enthusiasm, be it a natter with a devoted listener whose husband has finally hung some curtains in the house after a number of years or an in-depth discussion on the lost art of the slow set, a subject that attracts a tsunami of a response from the audience. They're absolutely loving it.

The banter between Hector (the surname, let's face it, is superfluous) and his listeners is carried out via a seemingly ceaseless flow of texts, calls and Facebook posts from across the globe: radio, thanks to the joys of broadband streaming, is a truly global medium these days.

And when they say the lines are hopping, they're not kidding. What's more, punters can witness proceedings via a live in-studio webcam. Call it the Hector Detector. By the time a member of the Limerick rap posse Rubber Bandits – masked in a plastic shopping bag with strategically placed air holes – lands for a surrealist chin-wag, the show has descended into a delicious madness. A madness punctuated by the occasional and utterly random toll of bells. Why? Sure, why not?

This relative newcomer to the national airwaves swiftly mastered the elusive art of radio broadcasting via The Tommy And Hector Show, the popular weekly programme co-hosted with best mate Tommy Tiernan on regional broadcasting colossus i102-104. As with the majority of projects Hector (and Tiernan) undertakes, he doesn't look to the Dub-centric mediaverse for approval – a massive nationwide audience will do nicely instead.

That winning on-air partnership was brought to a satisfying conclusion earlier this year, a result of the duo's increasingly incompatible schedules.

"By the time it came to the end," says Hector, "I was going to Canada to do the series (Hector i gCeanada, his latest travelogue) and Tommy was coming back and forth from festivals: he was in London, I was in Galway, then I went on holidays – I did three shows from Radio Español in Bilbao, three Saturdays, with Tommy in London – and after the last of them, we both texted each other at almost exactly the same time. He goes 'Man, this is getting really hard… I go 'Tell me about it, I'm on holiday, you're in London, and we're not in Galway.' And we both knew we were done. We had a great run."

At which point serendipity came a-calling, in the form of new 2FM boss John McMahon. As Hector puts it, the opportunity to do the breakfast show from his adopted hometown, meaning as little interruption to his family life as possible, was the clincher on the 2FM deal.

All in, it's a rather novel proposition, considering that it's the first time in its 30-year history that 2FM has dared to venture outside the capital for its morning programme – indeed, Breakfast With Hector is the only show regularly produced in RTÉ's Galway studios.

"After 16 years of being a freelancer," he says, "of not having to get up and to work on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I said 'Maybe we'll give it a go…' Because when will you be offered a job like this in the town that you live in? Tommy said take it, the missus said take it, my mother said take it… So feck it. Let's do it."

With former i102-104 station manager Alan Swan (the show's secret weapon) handling production duties, handing the prestigious breakfast slot over to an established personality like Ó hEochagáin – he's signed up for a year, minimum – might seem somewhat of a no-brainer. If anything, it's a welcome suggestion that there is life outside of Donnybrook. Especially when you consider that media commentators have been swift to suggest that the show's uniquely Western flavour might alienate the sensitive Dublin ear – something its front-man is quick to refute. "I spent years up in Dublin, he says.

"I know Dublin inside out. Somebody made up something that I won't appeal to Dublin audiences – sure half of Dublin lives in Meath. And half of Meath lives in Dublin. The culchies make up a lot of listeners. 2FM knew what they were getting into. They know what I do, and that's why they asked me to do it in the first place. I can't change who I am. And I won't, either."

Which is possibly as good a point as any to address the elephant in the room: there's something about Hector that generates an impassioned response in the average Irishman and/or woman: mention his name, and after they immediately repeat it back to you in a broad pseudo-Navan twang ('Haaaaack-torr'), chances are they'll either express absolute devotion or a profound dislike. It's a love/hate thing, straight up.

He's also a frequent whipping boy for critics who express dismay at his apparent ubiquity, something he puts down to the simple fact that he works steadily in what is ultimately a rather modest market : "I turn down a lot of gigs," he says, "and I've always been choosy about what I do. I get offered every single reality show, for starters. I get Celebrity Bainisteoir coming on their knees to me every time it comes around. People have made ridiculous offers: five-star holidays for the family, the works… I say no to the lot of them. I just don't want to do that stuff. I go on the Late Late to talk about my TG4 show or the radio thing, and then you won't see me on it for a year. It just doesn't interest me."

It's been a decade now since gregarious ginger gaelgeoir Hector Ó hEochagáin launched himself onto the nation's screens, via the first of an ongoing cycle of amiable series of lo-fi travel programmes for TG4 – the latest, Hector i gCeanada, sees him tackle the vast plains of The Great White North.

Since then, he's fronted any number of high-profile tailor-made vehicles for his unique abilities, from Hanging With Hector (perhaps best remembered for his bizarre encounter with then-taoiseach Bertie Ahern) to a pair of off-the-cuff rugby documentaries Chasing The Lions, co-hosted with Risteard Cooper of Après Match. By and large, his shows have tended to package his off-screen passions – travel, sport and talking highly entertaining nonsense with strangers – for public consumption. Uniquely enough, there's not a dud on his CV to date.

Hector discusses his greatest hits with a curious mix of self-deprecation and self-aggrandisement: on one hand, he refuses to take anything he's doing too seriously, on the other he's keen to stress the Ifta awards his shows have accumulated, along with the international success of horse-racing docu-series Only Fools Buy Horses, his own creation, which sold to 20 countries across the globe. What's more, he'll happily admit that he's a shameless hustler when it comes to getting programmes made his way, and that the national broadcaster hasn't always been quick off the mark when it comes to utilising his abilities.

"I was in RTÉ after I did Only Fools Buy Horses," he says, "which was a big success for them, and I sat in the canteen with the commissioning editor at the time, going 'Right – what have you got for me now?' And they go 'We want you to go round the country with young married couples… We're going to call it The Love Boat.' And I went 'Is this for real?' – and didn't go back there for a year. They'd love me to do Winning Streak. And I don't mean any offence to the people who do it, but touch wood, I'll never do it."

You don't write an article about Hector Ó hEochagáin, in so much as you wrestle an article about Hector Ó hEochagáin into submission.

Somewhere out there, in a parallel universe, your correspondent is still transcribing the tapes. Hector doesn't so much answer questions as wrap answers in anecdotes which beget tangents, every statement loaded with superfluous colourful detail and linguistic flourish.

The last time I interviewed Hector, for his first cover story some eight years ago, he was in his first flush of stardom, quotable and irreverent to a fault.

These days, he's a somewhat more circumspect and mellow presence, having comfortably settled into life as a natural-born broadcaster and one of the most familiar – and plenty would say lovable – faces in the country. In a curious fashion, he manages to hide in plain sight, enjoying a high-profile – Public Hector – while insisting that he still enjoys the quiet life – Private Hector – in the suburbs with wife Fionnuala and their two young sons.

Wherever he goes in Galway city, he's feeling the love from the radio show. Big time. He's the local boy (sort of) made good, after all. And Being Hector isn't a bad gig altogether. "I enjoy it. And I'm not going to shun away from it. The minute I do, I start losing my f***ing marbles, because who am I? I don't live in a fantasy land just because I'm on the telly. I'm no different from anyone else. I don't want to be on the cover of VIP. You'll see me when I have something to promote, something I want people to see or hear, and that's it."

'Hector i gCeanada' is on TG4 on Thursday nights at 9.30pm