Joe O'Donnell, the former head of Young people's department RTÉ, has died at the age of 91 his family has confirmed.
An influential figure in Irish television and theatre communities for many decades, Mr O'Donnell had a long, successful and colourful career and was celebrated for his creativity and charisma.
Born in Dublin, Joe O'Donnell was raised in Fairview before striking out to join the fit up theatre companies in his early 20's, where he travelled the length and breadth of Ireland with groups, including Anya McMaster.
He was an actor, writer and producer, and enthusiastic life long magician, before moving on to join RTÉ in the mid 1960's when he spotted an ad for trainees at the broadcaster.
Starting as a trainee cameraman, Mr O'Donnell climbed through the ranks to become one of the first TV Director/Producers.
Mr O'Donnell met his wife Tina Devitt who was working as a vision mixer at the broadcaster, and they were married for over 50 years.
He always had a particular commitment to young people's programming, explaining to his friend Mike Murphy on his Senior Times podcast in 2021 that he was convinced that children's television deserved its "own department" at that time.
"It was UNESCO, Year of the Child, and I had been representing RTÉ in the children's programmes in the EBU," he said, adding "I made sure that there was pressure put from a lot of the Europeans to say that, look, RTE deserves a children department, everybody else has a special children's department."
He subsequently became the head of Young People's department in RTÉ, where he was instrumental in steering programmes such as Wanderly Wagon.
One of his memorable career highlights lies in his creation of 'Bosco'.
Referred to as 'Bosco's Daddy', Mr O'Donnell said "there are a couple of generations of children who loved Bosco."
He always had a grá for the Irish language and produced 'SBB in shuí,' with Seán Bán Breathnach.
Other career highlights covered producing Hullaboloo and other programmes in collaboration with writers and performers including Shay Healy, Gerry Stembridge, Pat Ingoldsby, Marian Richardson and Bill Whelan.
When he left RTÉ in 1991, he went on to produce programmes for companies including Tyrone Productions, and continued writing for many years, and won the Francis McManus short story competition twice.
His friend and colleague John McColgan paid tribute to Joe O'Donnell today saying that "he was a wonderful friend in our gang including myself, Mike Murphy and Gay Byrne. He was loved by me, his colleagues and everyone who worked with him - we all just loved him."
Joe O'Donnell died in Dublin yesterday and was pre-deceased by his wife Tina in 2020, and is survived by his two sons, Michael and Barry and a wide circle of loving family, friends and former colleagues.
