Michael Flatley's music man and best pal Ronan Hardiman is behind the recent revamp of the music accompanying RTE's TV News.

Hardiman is more used to composing for Flatley shows such as Lord Of The Dance and Celtic Tiger, but says he was happy to have the opportunity.

"You don't just do one bit of music for RTÉ's News. You have to record all these variations for the sports news, the market news, music for the opening and closing, the coming in and out of the commercial breaks.

"All in all, it took me four weeks, but RTÉ are great people to work with," Ronan said.

Never far from his boss, last January Ronan found himself in the employ of US network NBC when Michael Flatley was hired to present reality show Superstars of Dance.

"It was billed as 'The Olympic Games of Dance'. They needed me because the Irish entry were dancing to music from Lord Of The Dance and I reworked the pieces for TV until they got knocked out in the semi-finals."

Hardiman's next project, a latin-based musical called The Sacred Flame, will see him working without Flatley.

Under wraps until it launches at Easter, the UK production is certainly on the Flatley scale as it's booked into an arena tour of Britain during the summer.

"Yes there are some big names involved," Hardiman told The Diary. "But I can't say who they are yet, sorry."