Ex-RTÉ star Lottie Ryan has told how her mum Morah ‘walked the grounds of RTÉ’ to say goodbye after her daughter announced she was leaving the station to take up a job on the Six O’Clock Show.

Lottie is the new host of Virgin Media’s flagship evening show with Brian Dowling, with the Dubliner leaving the surrounds of RTÉ after 15 years at 2FM.

But Lottie said that she didn’t realise how much her decision to leave RTÉ would ‘impact’ her family, as the Ryans have long been associated with the walls of Montrose because of her late dad and 2FM star Gerry Ryan, one of RTÉ’s most iconic figures, who died in April 2010.

Lottie told us: ‘I think Dad would be saying it’s about time. Listen, of course it’s emotional because there’s all kinds of deep-seated stuff then going on inside you about leaving there.

‘You know, closing that chapter, and it’s a strange one. Like I didn’t realise maybe the impact it was going to have on my family. Me leaving there, and my mum needed to come out and have a little walk around the grounds and say her goodbyes.

‘So on my last week, because she would come out to me occasionally for teas and coffees and stuff, just at the chats or whatever, I suppose maybe she felt she wasn’t going to be doing that anymore, so there might not be reason for her to be over there anymore.

‘She needed to do her own little thing, and I hadn’t taken any of that into consideration. That they would maybe feel the need to want to do their goodbyes as well. So she came out.

‘She did her little walk around. She put flowers. She left a bunch of flowers down at my dad’s little plaque there. It was a shift for all of them, I suppose.’

But the mother-of-one said her family was ecstatic when she told them her good news.

‘They’re absolutely thrilled. You know, listen, nobody knows better than your family. The effort that you might be putting into growing your career, no matter what industry you’re in, it could be any industry.

‘Doesn’t matter when you’re working your arse off and putting a lot of effort in, your family are the ones that are there supporting you and seeing you, whether it’s a success or a failure.

‘They’re the ones that are there watching it all. So they knew how badly I wanted something like this, or how long I have been striving for something like this.’

She said Morah ‘bawled’ when she told her the news that she had landed Virgin Media’s coveted show.

‘My mum bawled when I told her. My sister Bonnie and her husband’s reactions were probably my favourite. They just went f***ing bananas, and none of them saw it coming.

‘They’re really, really happy for me,’ she insisted.

Asked if she felt forced out of RTÉ after vocalising for several years that she was ready to host her own show, Lottie said that the ‘timing hasn’t been on my side’ when opportunities came up in RTÉ, saying she was waiting for the ‘right vehicle to come along’ and it never happened.

Lottie said: ‘I think timing, unfortunately, is such a huge part of this industry, and timing hasn’t been on my side for a lot of things.

‘I feel like I have been ready for a long time to take a bigger step, and it felt like my timing of where I was wasn’t aligning with where they were, and I was waiting for the right vehicle, and the vehicle just wasn’t really coming along.

‘I suppose, and I think you know, as much as I am incredibly grateful for everything, I don’t think anybody, as you said, spends 15 years somewhere not caring about a place and not truly believing that their next chapter is there.

‘But there are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that come around sometimes, and when that knock comes on the door, you have to jump at it with both hands, and I did.

‘I’m incredibly grateful that they were able to recognise where I was in my life and what I was capable of bringing to the table. I think we all want to feel appreciated, and you know when you give 110% of yourself to something, it’s nice to get it back.’

Lottie said when she was told by Virgin Media bosses that she had gotten the gig, she fell to the ground screaming just before her son Wolf’s graduation ceremony.

She said: ‘I screamed. I did actually scream, and I fell on the floor. I was with my husband when I got the call, and the person on the other end of the call was laughing and said, “I’ll just give you a moment there to have this moment”, and he allowed me to have the moment, and you know you don’t get calls like that very often.

‘I’m very aware of how often you get the other call. So I really wanted to allow myself the space to take it in. I was in disbelief.

‘I was actually on my way into my son’s graduation from his Montessori, so all the parents thought I’d already started bawling, crying at the graduation before it had even started, but I was actually crying with happiness.’

And she admitted she spoke to the Six O’Clock Show’s previous host Katja Mia for some advice when she accepted the job.

‘I had a good chat with Katja, and we had a lovely sit down together, and she spoke incredibly highly of Brian (Dowling) and the team and everybody over there.

‘I was very lucky in the sense that I got to work with Katja for probably most of the summer at RTÉ. She’s an amazing woman, and she spoke very highly of everybody.

‘Like she was very much saying, “You’re going to have an absolute blast with them because they’re amazing people”, and she’s right; they’re an amazing team.’