Team behind the show: Claire Byrne Live

This week we take a look at the team behind the RTé One show ‘Claire Byrne Live’ which is set to be aired at 22.35 Monday the 19th January. The show will be a brand new hour-long current affairs programme which will broadcast Monday nights on RTé One and RTé News Now. The programme will feature a live studio audience, along with a new set, graphics and some additional features. The programme structure will be similar to John Bowman’s ‘Questions and Answers’ which ran from 1988 to 2009 as well as RTE’s ‘Prime Time’ and ‘The Frontline’.

Presenter – Claire Byrne

Claire Byrne is a native of Mountrath in County Laois. She began her broadcasting career in radio and worked in the Channel Islands as a broadcast journalist for BBC before becoming News Editor with Channel 103fm. She returned to Ireland and began working with TV3 as an early morning News Anchor on the breakfast programme, Ireland AM. She was in this position for two and a half years, editing and producing her own bulletins. Claire then moved to London to take up a position as News Anchor with Channel 5 and the ITN News Channel. TV3 beckoned again and Claire returned to take up the job of Ireland AM presenter.

She then became the evening News Anchor for TV3, and won the Irish Film and Television Academy’s TV Personality of the Year Award in 2004 and the TV Now Favourite News Anchor Award. In 2006, Claire joined Newstalk 106-108 FM when the station went national. She stayed there until 2010 anchoring The Breakfast Show, a current affairs programme. After this position she moved to RTé, and joined the national broadcaster as a presenter on television and radio. Along with presenting current affairs programmes on RTé Radio 1 she co-presented The Daily Show on RTé One television for 2 years. She also presented Ireland Search and Rescue on RTé One in 2012. Before her maternity leave, Claire hosted a current affairs programme on Saturday afternoons called Saturday with Claire Byrne on RTé Radio 1, which she will be continuing alongside ‘Claire Byrne Live.’

Producer - John Downes.

John started his media career in September 2003 as an education specialist for The Irish Times. In March 2005 he moved to the position of news reporter with the paper. In 2008 he then moved to The Sunday Tribune as a news investigation correspondent. He stayed here until February 2011 when he joined RTé as a researcher for The Late Late Show. He was producer/director for RTé television in 2014, before taking up the same position with RTé Prime Time. John will also be producer/director for the Claire Byrne Live show upon launching.

John holds a BA in European Studies, French, Political Science, History, Sociology and German from Trinity College Dublin and a MA in Journalism from Dublin Institute of Technology.

Executive Producer - Aoife Stokes

Aoife began her career in 2003 as sub-editor of The Irish Times. She became a researcher on RTé Radio One in 2003 before holding research positions in Tyrone Productions, Stopwatch Television and The Late Late Show from 2004-2007. She became assistant producer of RTé’s Young People’s Department before moving onto assistant producer for both RTé’s Current Affairs, Prime Time and The Frontline. She became deputy editor of Prime Time in 2013. Aoife is now the Executive Producer of ‘The Claire Byrne Live’ show.

Aoife holds a B.A.Sc. in Journalism from Dublin Institute of Technology.

To see the rest of the team, please click here.