Morning Ireland

Cathal Mac Coille grew up in the Clondalkin area of Dublin but now lives on the northside, in Phibsborough. He caught the journalistic bug during a summer spent editing the Irish language magazine Comhar before returning to his studies for his BA in History at UCD. He worked as a researcher on several RTÉ radio programmes before getting his first job on the Nuacht desk in the newsroom in 1975. Cathal worked as a reporter with RTÉ's Belfast staff for six years.

On his return to Dublin in 1984, he had spells presenting both the lunchtime news and This Week before starting a four-year stint as presenter of Morning Ireland in 1986. He then spent 11 years away from the programme, first as news editor and later assistant editor of the Sunday Tribune, then as TG4's political correspondent. He's been a regular on Morning Ireland since his return in 2001.

In 2011, he was named PPI News Broadcaster of the Year. Other awards include a Jacobs radio prize in 1990 and Oireachtas na Gaeilge Journalist of the Year in 2003.

Cathal says his most memorable professional experience was covering Good Friday 1998, the day they did the deal at Stormont. "To be there was a privilege," he says. The thing that irritates him most in his job is having to listen sometimes to long, evasive answers. His interests are cycling, swimming, hurling, France, listening to music (particularly our own NSO), and keeping in touch with offspring in Dublin, London and Japan. He loves to read history and politics but admits to getting through only about ten novels in a good year. Television is for fun, Saturday night soccer, and the endless surprises of TG4. In another life, he would have been a teacher. "Wanted to, but didn't have the courage."