Gráinne Seoige

Gráinne Seoige
Born (1973-11-05) 5 November 1973
An Spidéal, County Galway, Ireland
Nationality Irish
Occupation TV presenter
Agent Noel Kelly[1]
Notable credit(s) Seoige
People of the Year Awards
The All Ireland Talent Show
Up for the Match
Put 'Em Under Pressure Daybreak
Spouse(s) Stephen Cullinane
Children 1 (Conall Seoige)
Relatives Síle Seoige (sister)
Website http://www.grainneseoige.co.uk

Gráinne Seoige (Irish pronunciation: [ˈɡɾˠaːnʲə ˈʃoːɟə], born 5 November 1973) is an Irish journalist, news anchor and documentary and entertainment television presenter.[2][3][4]

She is the only television personality to have worked with all four Republic of Ireland television stations: TG4, TV3, RTÉ One and RTÉ2. Seoige made broadcast history by reading the inaugural news bulletin on Tnag (now TG4), TV3, and Sky News Ireland; and she is the only news anchor to have presented the inaugural news bulletins on two Irish terrestrial stations, TV3 and TG4.

She joined RTÉ in 2006 where she co-presented afternoon chat show Seoige for three years alongside her sister Síle. Other high-profile roles for the broadcaster have included presenting The All Ireland Talent Show, co-presenting Up for the Match, hosting the People of the Year Awards, documentary series Gráinne Seoige's Modern Life, and Great Irish Journeys which looked at Ireland during the Famine in 1849.

She worked on ITV's breakfast show GMTV reporting and presenting and was Features Editor on its successor Daybreak in 2010–11. She has presented three British breakfast television shows, i.e. Sky News Sunrise with Eamonn Holmes, GMTV and Daybreak.

Seoige presented the Irish votes at the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 and was one of the presenters on the BBC1 show That's Britain in 2012.

Education

Educated at Mercy Convent in her native Spiddal, she graduated with honours in English, Sociology and Political Science from University College Galway before completing a Higher Diploma in Applied Communications for Television and Radio through Irish, also at University College Galway (now known as NUI Galway).

Broadcasting career

TG4/TV3

Seoige began her career on Halloween, 31 October 1996, with the launch of Teilifís na Gaeilge (now TG4) anchoring the 10pm news bulletin with Gillian Ní Cheallaigh.[5] She stayed there until 1998, when she was asked to be launch anchor with independent broadcaster TV3 and presented TV3's 5:30pm News (also known as First Edition) and 6:30pm News with Alan Cantwell. Seoige also hosted News Tonight, as well as producing, writing and presenting news updates throughout the day. She also presented occasionally, Ireland's only breakfast programme, TV3's breakfast show Ireland AM. Seoige was on air when the 9/11 terror attack happened and anchored over 7 hours of live news coverage alone that day.

Sky News

Grainne was head hunted to move to Sky News Ireland and presented its news bulletins from the 10 May 2004. She presented bulletins at Sky News headquarters anchoring on every programme between 12 midnight and 12 noon.

RTÉ

Seoige joined RTÉ in 2006. She had her own afternoon chat show, Seoige, with her sister Síle for 3 years.

She presented the People of the Year Awards in 2008, and co-presented RTÉ's Up for the Match specials in September alongside Des Cahill.[6] In 2009 Seoige began presenting The All Ireland Talent Show on Sunday evenings; her new role was announced by RTÉ on 6 November 2008.[7]

She presented sports quiz show Put 'Em Under Pressure and 'documentary series 'Gráinne Seoige's Modern Life in 2011.

She announced the points from Ireland at the 57th Eurovision Song Contest, held in Baku, Azerbaijan on 26 May 2012.

She often appears as a storyteller on the children's TV channel RTÉjr in the programme Tell Me a Story, delivering the stories in Irish.[8] She co-presents the series Crimecall on RTÉ1 with Philip Boucher Hayes.

GMTV

In March 2010 Seoige reported on the Cheltenham Festival for British breakfast programme GMTV alongside Dan Lobb.[9][10] The following month she returned to GMTV to present the sports news and later still the entertainment news slot and finally co-presented the show with John Stapleton

Daybreak

Seoige was Features Editor on ITV Breakfast's new morning programme Daybreak from September 2010.[11] During her time with Daybreak as well as presenting the show, she reported live from Camp Bastion in Afghanistan, filmed efforts to protect the endangered Black Rhino in Kenya, reported from the slums of Delhi on preparation and welfare issues in the build-up to the 2010 Commonwealth Games and much more including build up and coverage of the Royal Wedding and anchoring ITV breakfast coverage of the Queen's historic visit to Ireland.

BBC One

In 2011 she presented on the BBC One series That's Britain[12] covering issues including train overcrowding and Energy prices.

Personal life

In 2002, Seoige married former colleague and long term partner Stephen Cullinane who worked as sports editor at TV3 News and founded production company Touchline Media Ireland.[4] She has a teenage son named Conall[4] (from a previous relationship).[4][13]

Gráinne recently announced her engagement to South African businessman Leon Jordaan.

Awards

In 2004, Seoige was a winner at the VIP Style Awards.

She was honoured by NUIG in 2007 for her services to the Irish language.

References

  1. ↑ Cummiskey, Gavin (24 April 2010). "Gloves off". The Irish Times. Retrieved 24 April 2010. Among others, [Bernard Dunne] is on to Noel Kelly of the celebrity management company, a stable Dunne shares with Ryan Tubridy, Gerry Ryan, Gráinne Seoige, Craig Doyle delete character in |quote= at position 15 (help)
  2. ↑ Horan, Niamh (26 April 2009). "It's 'only a matter of time' until Grainne reads the news on RTÉ". Sunday Independent. Retrieved 26 April 2009. A number of RTÉ staff have spoken of the likelihood that the gaelgeoir will return to a more serious broadcasting role on the evening news.
  3. ↑ McIntyre, Sarah (23 March 2010). "Interview with Gráinne Seoige". RTÉ. Retrieved 23 March 2010.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Caden, Sarah (6 September 2009). "Grainne Seoige: 'reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated'". Sunday Independent. Retrieved 6 September 2009. "I couldn't do what I did last year again," says Grainne, intermittently eating her lunch between shots for this piece, hair half up for the Audrey Hepburn pictures.
  5. ↑ Nolan, Larissa (24 September 2006). "Nuacht a lae: Seoige goes back to TG4". Sunday Independent. Retrieved 24 September 2006.
  6. ↑ Seoige - Presenters RTÉ
  7. ↑ "Gráinne Seoige to present new talent show". RTÉ. 6 November 2008. Retrieved 6 November 2008.
  8. ↑ RTÉjr webpage on Tell Me a Story
  9. ↑ Hogan, Louise (19 April 2010). "Lady luck abandons us but Irish sweep fashion stakes". Irish Independent. Retrieved 19 April 2010.
  10. ↑ LN (21 April 2010). "Grounded Grainne to turn on style for new racing gig with GMTV". Evening Herald. Retrieved 21 April 2010.
  11. ↑ Daybreaking news! GMTV, 20 July 2010
  12. ↑ BBC (14 December 2011). "BBC One - That's Britain Episode Guide". BBC. Retrieved 14 December 2011.
  13. ↑ Grainne opens up about her teenage son Free Online Library
Interviews

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, February 18, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.