Morning Ireland

Hilary McGouran has spent the majority of her 17 years in RTÉ working on the programme, first as reporter, then as editor, and (with the odd gap for maternity leave) has spent most of the last ten years as editor-in-charge or "series editor".

In between, she worked as the first dedicated RTÉ bulletin reporter, covering major news events including the talks leading to the Good Friday Agreement and the first months of the Flood Tribunal. She also worked on the 2FM desk as one of its team of newscasters.

Hilary started her career in print journalism, having graduated from the School of Journalism at the College of Commerce, Rathmines, in her native Dublin. She freelanced full-time for several years for Independent Newspapers and also spent three very happy years on the staff of the Evening Press, but luckily jumped ship to RTÉ six months before its demise.

As a reporter on Morning Ireland, she covered the death and funeral of Britain's Princess Diana, fall-out from the States of Fear programme and the Labour election campaign which saw Blair victorious for the first time. In her first week as editor, Omagh was bombed.

Since then, she has worked on every major news story to affect this country and beyond, and has overseen special programmes on everything from the the US invasion of Iraq, the death of Pope John Paul 11, the recent US presidential election and most recently, the pork recall.

Hilary is married to Andrew, who has no connection to journalism and keeps her on the straight and narrow in terms of what "real people" are concerned about and interested in. They have three young children.