{"id":199808,"date":"2025-12-19T08:14:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T08:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/199808\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T08:14:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T08:14:10","slug":"rita-loved-christmas-and-getting-the-perfect-present-for-everyone-maura-derrane-on-losing-her-sister-and-her-30-year-tv-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/199808\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Rita loved Christmas and getting the perfect present for everyone\u2019 \u2013 Maura Derrane on losing her sister and her 30-year TV career"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">\nMaura Derrane has been on our screens for three decades and has spent the last 14 co-hosting the \u2018Today\u2019 show with D\u00e1ith\u00ed \u00d3 S\u00e9 \u2013 she talks to Kirsty Blake Knox about the programme\u2019s success and why Christmas is hard after losing her sister to cancer\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Maura Derrane will co-host a 'Today' show special on December 23. Photo: Gerard McCarthy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/ifmaura1.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Maura Derrane will co-host a &#8216;Today&#8217; show special on December 23. Photo: Gerard McCarthy<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">For many experiencing grief and loss, Christmas can be a challenging time. And that\u2019s something broadcaster Maura Derrane knows well. Sadly, two years ago, her youngest sister Rita died of breast cancer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Rita first contracted cancer when she was 38 years old. It returned some years later and she passed when she was 51 in November 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maura Derrane has been on our screens for three decades and has spent the last 14 co-hosting the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60,9715],"class_list":["post-199808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kirsty-blake-knox"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}