From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Miriam O'Callaghan (born 6 January 1960) is a television current affairs broadcaster and chat show host on Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) in Ireland. She has presented flagship current affairs show Prime Time since 1996, and her own chat show Saturday Night with Miriam since 2005. In the summer of 2009, she added a radio show 'Miriam Meets...' to her output. ^[1] One of Ireland's most popular television presenters, she has been voted Television Personality of the Year, Most Stylish presenter^[2] and in 2009 topped the Social and Personal '100 Sexiest Legs' poll.^[3]

Biography

Early life

Miriam O'Callaghan was born in Foxrock, Dublin, the second child in a family of five. Her father Jerry came from Currans, a small village outside Castleisland in County Kerry and he subsequently became a senior civil servant in the Department of Energy. He grew up on a small farm at Callaghan's Cross, where the young Miriam spent her childhood summer holidays. Her mother, also Miriam, was born in Ballylinan, a village in County Laois where her father was the local Garda Sergeant. Miriam Snr became a National School Principal and taught her daughters at the local St Brigids National School in Foxrock.

At secondary level Miriam was educated at the non-fee paying Sisters of Charity School in Milltown rather than the local private Loretto Convent. Miriam sat her Leaving Certificate at the age of 16 and then studied law at University College Dublin, where she also completed a Post Graduate Diploma in European Law. She studied to be a solicitor at Blackhall Place, while articled to a solicitor's practice in Merrion Square. As a student, Miriam supplemented her income by teaching piano, having achieved a Diploma in the instrument.

Soon after qualifying as a solicitor in 1983, O'Callaghan moved to London with her then husband Tom McGurk and applied through a public advertisement in the Guardian newspaper for a researcher's job in Thames Television. She secured a position on This Is Your Life, then presented by Eamonn Andrews. Miriam subsequently moved onto researching current affairs programmes for Thames and in 1987 she left to train as a BBC producer in the BBC Television Centre in West London. As a producer, she worked on shows such as Kilroy, Family Matters and Prime Time, responsible for specials from Hong Kong and Jerusalem. Though reluctant to move away from TV production into presenting roles, in 1989 she agreed to present a BBC show called 'Extra', which partly broadcast from Budapest. It was while working on this show, that O' Callaghan was spotted by the then Editor of Newsnight Tim Gardam (subsequently to become Director of Programmes at Channel Four) and he recruited her as a high profile reporter on the BBC's flagship news programme Newsnight with Jeremy Paxman.

While working for eight years for Newsnight, O' Callaghan covered all the major stories breaking in Northern Ireland including all Newsnight's coverage of the peace process. She also reported and investigated on a number of major miscarriages of justice including the case of Kiranjit Ahluwalia, who was subsequently released from prison after a long campaign, and the case of the UDR 4.

RTÉ Career

O'Callaghan was head hunted by RTÉ and returned to Ireland in 1993 to present Marketplace, an economics and business programme. She also acted as Editor of the series for one season. She juggled working with the BBC and RTÉ at the same time and also worked on the debut series of the ITV show 'Tonight With Trevor MacDonald'. From 1996 RTÉ secured her services exclusively as the presenter of Prime Time. O'Callaghan separated from her first husband the year before - she had four daughters at this stage. She met her present husband, Steve Carson, while working for 'Newsnight'.

In 2000 the couple married and set up their own television company, "Mint Productions". The company has won numerous awards and has produced documentaries and series on many subjects, including one off films on the racehorse Shergar,on historical and political figures such as Pádraig Pearse, Michael Collins, Charles Haughey, and most recently on Bertie Ahern. The company also made many observational documentary series such as 'Our Lady's', 'Surgeons', 'Unit 8' and 'Junior Doctors'. In 2009, the company is producing a second series for 'Who Do You Think you Are' for RTÉ, with O'Callaghan acting as executive producer.^[4]

O'Callaghan has had another four children in her second marriage. She continues to present RTÉ's Prime Time programme on Tuesday and Thursday nights, as well as Budget and Election programmes. She has anchored the 'Leader's Debate' between the Taoiseach and the Leader of the Opposition for the last three General Elections.

In 2005, she began the first series of her own chat show 'Saturday Night With Miriam' during the summer months. O'Callaghan made her debut as radio presenter in summer 2009 with 'Miriam Meets', which began on Saturday 11 July and will run for eight weeks.^[5][6] It was confirmed in August 2009, that the programme would return permanently to RTÉ Radio 1 on a Sunday morning.^{[7 ]}

Miriam O'Callaghan's earnings at RTÉ were €221,251 in 2004 and €177,083 in 2003.

References

External links

• [1] RTE.ie Webchat - Miriam O'Callaghan - Thursday, 6 April, 2006