Miriam O’Callaghan at work on RTÉ’s Prime Time. Here is a book which will interest and delight those many viewers who have followed the career of one of the country’s leading broadcasters.
Miriam O’Callaghan was born on January 6 at Cornelscourt, Co. Dublin. Her father was a civil servant, her mother was a teacher. Miriam attended St Brigid’s, the local national school in which her mother was one of the teachers.
She continued her education at Mount St Anne’s Secondary School in Milltown, which was conducted by the Irish Sisters of Charity. Miriam then went on to study law at University College, Dublin. On qualifying as a solicitor, she joined a legal practice in Dublin.
Congenial
However, not finding the practice congenial, like many other young Irish men and women, she travelled to London in search of employment. In London, Miriam first worked in a recruitment agency near Oxford Circus and later as a sales assistant for a fashion store on Regent Street.
Then she met Eamonn Andrews, who at that time was ‘the’ leading Irish figure on BBC television.
Tom took Miriam to the wake of the hunger-striker, Bobbie Sands. She recalls the tension in the air over West Belfast – the grief, despair and the anger”
He was setting up a new programme which was to be entitled This is Your Life. Eamonn suggested that Miriam secure an appointment on the programme as a researcher, which she did. Miriam records how happy she was working on the show, especially when Bob Geldof and Pat Jennings had their lives featured on it.
In the meantime, she had met and married Tom McGurk. Tom was a native of Omagh, Co. Tyrone, a graduate of Queen’s University, Belfast, and was then working as a journalist at RTÉ.
Through Tom, Miriam had a rude awakening with regard to Northern Ireland as he informed her of its oppressive past and uncertain future. Tom took Miriam to the wake of the hunger-striker, Bobbie Sands. She recalls the tension in the air over West Belfast – the grief, despair and the anger.
Miriam and Tom had four daughters. However, their marriage failed, and they had what Miriam claims was a friendly divorce.
Remarkable
Miriam is a truly remarkable broadcaster. For some forty years she has presented programmes on radio and TV on both sides of the Irish Sea. Among these programmes is RTÉ’s prestigious current affairs TV programme, Prime Time. She fronted RTÉ’s coverage of Queen Elizabeth II’s state visit to Ireland in May 2011.
Miriam has also interviewed most of the political ‘great and good’ of her time, including President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary. She makes a revealing comment on each of those interviews. Steve Carson produced many of her programmes. She married Steve and they had four sons. They also set up their own production company.
In the early chapters, Miriam writes at length of her high regard and love of her parents, grandparents and her affection for the extended O’Callaghan family”
Miriam writes at length about an interview she presented featuring Seán Quinn. It was alleged that Quinn was the ‘master mind’ behind a campaign of intimidation and violent attacks on senior staff members of one of the companies he lost in the financial crash and which had begun trading again under new ownership and management.
She records how she carefully prepared so that the interview would be balanced, courteous and yet thorough. She ensured that she got straight, honest answers from straight, direct questions. Miriam and Steve were keen to set up an interview with Charles J. Haughey, who had been a central figure in Irish politics and not a few controversies. However, despite many discussions to that end, they failed to do so.
In the early chapters, Miriam writes at length of her high regard and love of her parents, grandparents and her affection for the extended O’Callaghan family. One of the men she admired greatly was Jack O’Callaghan, her father’s brother. He went to London, where he worked on building sites and as a park attendant and on retiring returned to his family home in the vicinity of Farranfore, Co. Kerry.
Early on she also writes extensively about her various pregnancies, her delight in her children and how she enjoys organising joyful gatherings of the extended family on the occasions of First Communions, Confirmations and birthdays.
This autobiography illustrates the fact that, notwithstanding her truly remarkable career and fame as a broadcaster and “media person”, Miriam is first and foremost a dedicated mother.