Activist and sports journalist Joanne O'Riordan spoke of the importance of lending a voice to 'ordinary people doing extraordinary things' on RTÉ One's The Tommy Tiernan Show on Saturday night.

Asked who her favourite sports writers were, 23-year old Joanne named in particular the late Jimmy Breslin, who wrote a column for the New York Daily News Sunday edition along with a number of acclaimed novels.

She acknowledged that Breslin was before her time, but one article particularly struck her in which the writer wrote about John F Kennedy's gravedigger. Breslin was trying to see the momentous, tragic event of the US President's assassination in 1963 from another perspective.

The sports writer was later asked why he wrote about the gravedigger. "He said sometimes it's better to go to the loser's dressing room rather than the winning dressing room," she said. 

"And I always thought that that was a good idea because everyone wants to know how did the winners win but, but no one wants to talk to the loser and see it from their perspective."

This was something Joanne could relate to. "Maybe 50 years ago no one wanted to hear from the limbless person who was always complaining about things so I felt there are a lot of ordinary people every day doing extraordinary things so why not give them a voice?"

We need your consent to load this YouTube contentWe use YouTube to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences