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Vincent Browne
Born	17 July 1944 (1944-07-17) (age 65) Broadford, County Limerick, Ireland
Nationality	Irish
Education	Castleknock College
Alma mater	University College Dublin
Occupation	Journalist / TV Presenter
Employer	The Irish Times, The Sunday Business Post, TV3
Known for	Presenting TV3's Nightly News with Vincent Browne
Spouse(s)	Jean Browne
Children	Emma Julia

Vincent Browne (born 17 July 1944) is an Irish print and broadcast journalist. He is a columnist with The Irish Times and The Sunday Business Post and a part time barrister.

From 1996 until 2007, he presented a nightly talk-show on RTÉ Radio, Tonight with Vincent Browne, which focused on politics, the proceedings of tribunals on political corruption and police misconduct. He now presents Nightly News with Vincent Browne on TV3, which broadcasts every Monday-Thursday at 11pm. The show is simply called Nightly News on Friday nights.

Early life

Born in 1944, he grew up in Broadford, County Limerick, where he attended the local national school. He spent a year at the Irish college in Ring, County Waterford, then a year at St Mary's secondary school in Dromcolliher, County Limerick, before going to Castleknock College (1957–1962). He graduated from University College Dublin with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Politics and Economics – where he also founded the oldest surviving newspaper, the College Tribune in 1966.

Career

He worked on RTÉ's Late Late Show for five months in 1967–68.^{[1 ]} He reported on the Soviet and Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 for The Irish Times and then edited a monthly news magazine, Nusight in 1969–1970. ^[2]

He was appointed northern news editor of the Irish Press group in 1970 (working for all three newspapers in the group, The Irish Press, the Evening Press and The Sunday Press) and covered the most intense and violent period of the Northern Ireland conflict.^{[1 ]} In 1974 he joined Independent Newspapers and, after a brief period in the Evening Herald, worked for the Sunday Independent, then edited by Conor O'Brien and later by Michael Hand.^{[3 ]}

He launched Magill magazine in September 1977 with Noel Pearson and Mary Holland. Magill became Ireland's foremost investigative publication. Among its writers were Gene Kerrigan, Pat Brennan and Paddy Agnew. He remained editor of Magill until 1983, when he became involved in the relaunch of the Sunday Tribune, with Tony Ryan, then of GPA later of Ryanair. He was editor of the Sunday Tribune until 1994. He has written a weekly column for The Irish Times since then and since 2000 has written weekly for The Sunday Business Post.^{[1 ]} He started broadcasting with RTÉ radio in 1996.

In 1997 he relaunched Magill magazine, which had ceased publication in 1990. In the 13 issues he published then, the magazine broke several major stories - one led to the establishment of the Planning Tribunal, originally chaired by Mr Justice Fergus Flood, another caused a committee of the Oireachtas to examine the DIRT scandal, another caused an investigation of insurance "churning" by Irish Life, a leading Irish insurance company. He sold the Magill title to Hosen publisher, Mike Hogan, in November 1998.^{[1 ]} He was called to the Irish Bar in 1997 and for a while practiced as a barrister. He now practices on only a part time basis. In October 2004 he launched a current affairs magazine Village, which he was editor.^{[4 ][5]} Village ceased publication in August 2008 before being relaunched under a new editor Michael Smith. Vincent Browne now writes a column for Village magazine.</ref> ^[6]

He was involved in a controversy over the tapping of his telephone by the Irish state from February 1975 to February 1983. When this was disclosed by former minister for justice Seán Doherty, Browne sued the State. He made a settlement with the State in 1997 which included an agreement to publish a statement on the settlement, stating, inter alia, that the State had intercepted his telephone conversations for reasons of State security – Browne had written much about the IRA in the early- to mid-1970s – while accepting that Browne had himself never been involved in subversion or crime. On being given access to the transcripts of 81, Browne claimed that it was apparent the motivation for the interception of his telephone conversations for the eight-year period had little to do with the security of the State – it was aimed at garnering information on his work as a journalist, entirely aside from his reporting of the IRA. Browne sought to have the agreement altered to permit a public acknowledgement that the intercepts were not done for security reasons. The then government of Fine Gael–Labour Party refused. He subsequently disclosed this himself on television and later in print.^[7]

In 1994 Vincent Browne sought a nomination for the Fine Gael party in that years European Elections or the possible general election of that year (it was thought a general election might follow the collapse of the Albert Reynolds government). He was rebuffed by the then leader of Fine Gael and later Taoiseach, John Bruton. Vincent Browne has since become a vocal critic of Fine Gael.^[8]

For ten years he presented to Tonight with Vincent Browne on RTÉ Radio 1.^[9] In August 2000 he filled in for John Bowman on the RTÉ Television programme Questions and Answers. He also presented Prime Time on RTÉ One.. ^[10]

Since January 14, Browne has presented TV3 Nightly News, a nightly current affairs show on TV3.^{[11] [12]}

Personal life

Browne is married to Jean and has two daughters; Emma (who is a qualified barrister also) and Julia.^{[4 ]}

References

External links

• Village Magazine