As Virgin Media’s early birds marked 27 years on air on Sunday, we round up the presenters who’ve poured the tea, read the autocue and occasionally forgotten the cameras were rolling
It’s hard to believe it’s been 27 years since Ireland woke up to a couch, a coffee and Alan Hughes’s high-pitched human alarm clock. Ireland AM first flickered onto our screens on 20 September 1999, the same year as we got the euro, the Playstation 2, and it was also the year Westlife cemented their reputation as chart toppers when they swore they’d Swear it Again (as indeed they have).
Like Westlife who are currently on a 13 night run in the 3Arena Ireland AM has muddled along delightfully delivering 27 years of top telly. Two-and-a-half decades on the couch and the show is still going strong, still feeding the nation biscuits and breaking news before most of us have found our other sock.
Chaos descends on Ireland AM as Mark Cagney tries to stop Kathy O’Beirne facing up to Hermann Kelly. Pic: Virgin Media One
THE OG AM CREW
Corkonian Mark Cagney anchored the show for a staggering two decades before hanging up his headset in 2019, and these days he’s very much a man of leisure.
The odd Newstalk fill-in aside, he’s largely traded the 4am alarm for a lie-in, and who could blame him. Cagney more or less fell into broadcasting by accident, filling in when a nightclub DJ failed to show up and doing well enough to land a regular pirate radio slot off the back of it.
Amanda Byram and Mark Cagney. Pic: Collins
Cagney’s first sidekick was Castleknock beauty Amanda Byram, who certainly made the rise and shine more pleasing.
After her stint on the couch Amanda jumped ship in 2001 for Channel 4’s Big Breakfast and never really came home. She’s been living the London life ever since, where she is a doting mother to two young sons. Byram welcomed her second son, Jett Indy, in February 2025 at the age of 51, joining older brother Phoenix.
Amanda Byram and Mark Cagney in 1999. Pic: Collins Dublin
An avid keep-fit aficionada these days, Amanda’s early mornings involve taking care of her two boys, and at present she is elbow-deep in a house renovation in Fulham that, by her own admission, has left her ‘slightly overwhelmed.’
Byram’s replacement, Claire Byrne, cut her broadcasting chops on Ireland AM. Byrne joined the chirpy-chops Ireland AM crew in 2001, where it was evident she was a news natural.
Claire Byrne. Pic: Arthur Carron/Collins Dublin
Claire very swiftly became the star of the show and left in 2004 to go on and become one of the most recognisable faces in Irish news, with standout programmes on RTÉ telly and Radio One. A shock defection from RTÉ to Newstalk earlier this year saw Byrne make headlines herself.
She has just done a stint on Celebrity Gogglebox, alongside none other than fellow Ireland AM alum Ciara Doherty.
Ciara Doherty and Claire Byrne on Celebrity Gogglebox Ireland. Pic: Virgin Media Television
THE NOUGHTIES SOFA
Maura Derrane also made her first foray onto the national consciousness by way of the Ireland AM studio, taking over from Byrne in 2004. Bright and breezy, Derrane proved a perfect fit for the show. She has since swapped Ballymount for Cork, and has been keeping the county abreast of goings-on on Today with Maura and Dáithí since 2012.
Maura Derrane and Mark Cagney at her leaving party in 2006. Pic: Collins
Derrane came to broadcasting prominence with an ecclectic pedigree.
A former crime reporter she earned a law degree and she also has three series fronting Feirm Factor, TG4’s farming talent competition under her impressive belt a world away from the four courts and the breakfast sofa.
Maura Derrane. Pic: Collins
Her successor, Sinead Desmond, held the fort from 2006 to 2017, becoming the show’s longest serving female anchor before a very public exit amid a gender pay row which went legal.
She’s kept a notably low profile since, though it turns out there was rather more adventure in her than her polished on-air persona let on: back in 2009 she needed rescuing by helicopter after suffering altitude sickness on Mont Blanc.
Sinead Desmond. Pic: Collins
Aidan Cooney, meanwhile, held down the co-host and sports desk from 2006 to 2018, quietly departing after a lengthy run in the hot seat.
THE 2010s SHAKE-UP
Anna Daly first joined the couch back in 2009, stepped away in 2015 for a stint fronting Weekend AM, returned in 2019, and finally departed for the safer shores of RTÉ in 2021.
Anna didn’t start out in front of the camera at all, in fact she spent four years in TV3’s marketing department, working her way up to Marketing Manager, before she ever sat on the sofa.
Aidan Cooney, Sinead Desmond, Mark Cagney, Anna Daly and Alan Hughes. Pic: Brian McEvoy
Ciara Doherty joined in 2015, took over the main sofa role in 2018, and moved on to front The Tonight Show from 2020, until a shock exit in 2024 saw her land at Newstalk, where she now hosts the Newstalk Daily podcast.
Then there’s Karen Koster, who first joined as Ireland AM’s weather girl all the way back in 2004, left for Xposé in 2007, and returned to cover maternity leave in 2019 before sticking around as a permanent co-host.
Television presenters Lisa Cannon, Karen Koster, Lorraine Keane, Sybil Mulcahy and Aisling O Loughlin at the launch of TV3’s new entertainment show Xposé in 2007. Pic: RollingNews.ie
She decamped to The 6 O’Clock Show in 2021 and stepped back from full time telly in 2023 for family reasons, though her broadcasting career actually kicked off as runner-up on RTÉ’s talent search show The Selection Box back in 2001.
Don’t be surprised to spot her keeping Alan Hughes’s seat warm on Ireland AM whenever he’s off doing panto, which, let’s be honest, is often.
Alan Hughes as Sammy Sausages in the Stadium Panto ‘Cinderella with Sammy and Buffy’. Pic: Brian McEvoy
The weekend trio of Laura Woods, Aidan Power and Simon Delaney all arrived in 2019 and all left in the 2021 to 2022 cull. Woods has resurfaced on Dublin’s Q102 radio, Power is doing mornings on Freedom FM, and Raheny native Delaney, now firmly an actor and director, has a Sunday afternoon slot on RTÉ lyric fm.
Fun fact Delaney’s first ever credited TV role, incidentally, was playing a ‘Ballydung Player’ on children’s show A Scare at Bedtime, a fairly unglamorous start for a man who’d go on to appear in The Conjuring 2.
Anna Daly and Simon delaney. Pic: VIP Ireland
Katja Mia joined in 2022, left for The 6 O’Clock Show in 2023, and exited that gig too this past April.
TODAY’S TEAM
Which brings us to the current gang: Alan Hughes remains the last man standing from the class of ’99, still holding court Monday to Thursday alongside Muireann O’Connell, who came on board in 2021 and former rugby international Tommy Bowe, who togged out for the couch in 2020. Roving reporter Deric Hartigan has also been a highlight of the show for more than 15 years with his out and about lives and weather forecasts.
Tommy Bowe, Elaine Crowley, Eric Roberts, Muireann O’Connell, Alan Hughes, Martin King and Deric Hartigan. Pic: Evan Doherty
O’Connell, who has become the nation’s favourite once worked at the Trinity Rooms nightclub in Limerick and has spoken about surviving some fairly chaotic nights on the job long before she was reading the autocue, while Bowe’s party piece isn’t just rugby: his rendition of ‘The Black Velvet Band’ during Ireland’s 2009 Grand Slam celebrations was memorable enough to be replayed on The Late Late Show. Weekends belong to Elaine Crowley, Martin King and newest arrival Eric Roberts who joined the team in
Twenty seven years, dozens of presenters, several thousand gallons of studio coffee, and the couch shows no sign of stopping.