Westmeath native has talk show in US

In 2017, Odran 'Odi' Fitzgerald from Mullingar travelled over to South Carolina to work in his firm Mergon's plant for what he thought was a week.

Fast forward five years and not only is Odi still in the Deep South, he's also married to Lauren (a bona fide cowgirl), has a two year old son, Lochlan, and recently started hosting his own talk show on a cable channel and on YouTube.

Night Time With Odi started broadcasting around two months ago and has steadily been building its viewership since.

It's not the first time the robotics engineer has been in front of the camera. For a period he was one of the hosts of Westmeath Matters, a Nationwide style show on Irish TV that featured stories and people from his home county and was broadcast on Sky.

While Night Time with Odi has a very different format, there are some similarities as it focuses on the people, businesses and groups that make his adopted home town, Anderson, special.

“We have real people on. We have people that have local businesses. It's local people, local stories. It's bringing the small stories to a big audience. We have two songs from a music act every night. The last band we had on the oldest member was 23. We are giving these bands a break. I had a guy, who is in his late 70s and still plays local bars and clubs. He is doing it now for fun. We also have a comedian every night. It's always someone local.”

Odi is a man of many talents. He has done stand up comedy for the best part of 15 years and before he moved to the US, helped run a comedy club in Columbia Bar for a few years. He also does a bit of acting and voice-over work, and in the past did what he describes as “extra curricular” work in iRadio and Midlands 103.

He also had a huge interest in photography and videography. However, when he moved to America, he put many of these pursuits to one side as he was, in his own words, “living the dream over here”.

“My wife saw some of my photos and asked why don't I take photographs any more. She ended buying me a camera for my birthday and it started from there. I started doing videography and one of the production companies in Anderson they saw my work and asked me to do some videography for them, part time stuff, little bits of pieces. They wanted to do a night time talk show and they had a guy lined up, but due to unforeseen circumstances he couldn't do it.

“They said, 'Odi, we love your accent and think you are well able to talk to people. Do you want to come and do the show for us?'.”

Still going through what Odi describes as it's soft launch, Night Time with Odi's viewership is growing all time. Pleased with how it is going so far, its host's Irish charm seems to working with the people of Anderson County, which is around the same size of Westmeath, but with a slightly larger population.

By his own admission, happier behind the camera than in front of it, Odi is enjoying this latest chapter in his varied media career.

“I'd love it if it kept growing. I'd love it take off. The production company that hired me in, they are very pleased with the stuff that we are doing and that our audience is constantly growing. We haven't dipped at all. They are very happy and we want to keep it going. Eventually, it would be lovely as a full time career but for now it's great as a little side gig."

Night Time with Odi can be watched here.