This is Charlie Bird - Softcover

Bird, Charlie; Rafter, Kevin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0717142892 ISBN 13: 9780717142897

Publisher: Gill & Macmillan Ltd, 2007

Synopsis

Charlie Bird has been at the heart of every big news event over the last twenty-five years, breaking exclusive stories and interviewing presidents and prime ministers. In his autobiography he tells his own story and reveals how he has become one of Ireland's best-known journalists.

Charlie Bird has made his name as a front-of-camera reporter covering the news as it happens, from wherever it happens. During his career as a news journalist he reported on the upheavals of the Haughey / FitzGerald years through to the governments of Albert Reynolds, John Bruton and Bertie Ahern.

Charlie Bird was RTÉ's contact with the IRA and now for the first time he reveals the background to his meetings with leading republicans in the lead-up to the 1994 and 1997 ceasefire declarations.

He also recalls the investigation which exposed wrong-doing at National Irish Bank and the resulting stress of being involved in Ireland’s longest libel case.

He gives an insight into his foreign travels including the trial of Father Niall O’Brien in the Philippines, the release of Brian Keenan, meeting Nelson Mandela when he voted in the first post-apartheid elections in South Africa, and the Asian tsunami in 2004.

Today Charlie is one of the best-known faces on Irish TV. In telling his story, he goes beyond the news agenda to tell his own personal story, his family background and Dublin childhood as well as the difficulties that have arisen when he became part of the media story himself.

‘It’s well worth a read’ Irish Times

‘Real contemporary history, told from the man who articulated and therefore shaped the history as it happened’ Irish Examiner

‘*****’ RTE Guide

About this title

About the Authors

Charlie Bird is one of Ireland's most prominent journalists. For years he travelled extensively as RTÉ's Chief News Correspondent, visiting sites of armed conflict, political intrigue and natural disaster around the world. He resigned from that post in 2009 to assume the role of Washington Correspondent, which he held until the following year. He retired from RTÉ in 2012. He has also made a number of acclaimed travel documentaries, collected as 'Charlie Bird Explores',in which he spent time living with the indigenous peoples of the Arctic, the Ganges and the Amazon river basin.

Kevin Rafter is Assistant Editor of the Sunday Tribune newspaper. He has held senior editorial positions at RTE, the Irish Times and the Sunday Times as well as lecturing in Irish politics in Dublin. His publications include biographies of Martin Mansergh and Neil Blaney as well as a history of Clann na Poblachta.

Edition details

• Publisher: Gill & Macmillan Ltd
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0717142892
• ISBN 13: 9780717142897
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 326