{"id":544064,"date":"2026-07-11T07:06:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T07:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/544064\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T07:06:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T07:06:17","slug":"claire-byrne-on-a-fresh-start-and-leaving-her-comfort-zone-im-exposing-a-bit-more-of-myself-and-my-fears-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/544064\/","title":{"rendered":"Claire Byrne on a fresh start and leaving her comfort zone: \u2018I\u2019m exposing a bit more of myself and my fears\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Claire Byrne<\/a> is riding tall under a blistering sun. She\u2019s on horseback, holding the horn of the saddle with one hand while using the other to hang on to her hat. \u201cI\u2019m so proud of this,\u201d she says, showing me the Instagram reel of her visit to the Fossey Mountain Springs Ranch in Timahoe. She has been on horses before, but this was western-style riding, without reins.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just terrifying, but brilliant,\u201d she says from the steadier ground of Marconi House, aka Newstalk<\/a> HQ, two days after her daily radio show brought her to her home county of Laois.<\/p>\n

Would she have been able to have this kind of fun at RT\u00c9<\/a>? Is fun allowed at RT\u00c9?<\/p>\n

\u201cAh, maybe it is. Maybe not with the kind of show that I was doing, because it\u2019s hard to get out of the studio sometimes when you\u2019re doing a big public-service radio show. But I did have fun in RT\u00c9. We did do fun things. Like on the television show [Claire Byrne Live], we did crazy things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stretching herself, straying out of her comfort zone and perhaps doing the occasional crazy thing is part of Byrne\u2019s philosophy. Her CV might be topped by her high-profile current affairs roles, but we soon delve into a lesser-mentioned entry: her stint as a reporter on Touch the Truck, a Channel 5 endurance gameshow in which 20 people competed for a Toyota Landcruiser Amazon by seeing who could hold on to it the longest.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember thinking, \u2018Why are they asking me to do this thing?\u2019\u201d says Byrne, who was working as a news anchor for Channel 5 at the time. The show marked a new and unexpected frontier for UK reality television in 2001, provoking debate about whether it was TV genius or just plain daft.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was probably daft. Like, people really went to strange places through lack of sleep on that show, and also the fact that it was in a shopping centre, I mean, the whole thing was bananas. Bananas! But good fun too.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is very easy to get \u201cstuck in a rut\u201d, she thinks. \u201cAnd so when somebody offers something to me that is different, rather than jump to the \u2018no\u2019, I like to try and consider it first and say, well, is there a way that I could maybe learn from this or will it be an enjoyable experience?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ClaireClaire Byrne at St Stephen’s Green, Dublin. Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill <\/p>\n

Byrne is now five months into her 9am-noon, Monday to Friday show on Newstalk, the station she previously worked for between 2006 and 2010, and though she is \u201cstill new to the job\u201d, she also feels like she\u2019s \u201con the wheel\u201d. Comfortable, even. So what better time than to start a podcast?<\/p>\n

On her 10-part series Never Have I Ever, Byrne interviews people who have done things she hasn\u2019t yet, such as writing a book, competing on a reality show, playing professional poker or being a pantomime dame.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m exposing a little bit more of myself and my own fears,\u201d she says. The idea is that at the end of this first series \u2013 Newstalk has since confirmed a second \u2013 she will do one of the things she has never done.<\/p>\n

It has to be the panto dame, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you see my wig?\u201d she enthuses, explaining how actor Rob Murphy, her panto-dame guest, showed her how to put one of his on. \u201cI expected it to be really heavy, but it was really light.\u201d<\/p>\n

Byrne, who turned 50 last August, isn\u2019t sure if she has a wild side \u2013 Murphy\u2019s theory is that everyone has one \u2013 but lately she has been dwelling more on what really brings her pleasure.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince I\u2019ve matured to the age that I\u2019m at, I\u2019ve realised that your true self is the person who you were as a child. I\u2019ve made that up, I could be wrong, but I find my joy in books and in nature and in acting, actually, yeah,\u201d she says, laughing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to love the school play, and drama and all that. Absolutely loved it. The nuns used to kill me for changing the script all the time. So it is possible, that I could get on a stage and break out of my shell.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for appearing on, say, a celebrity version of The Traitors Ireland or keeping a poker-face during an actual game of poker, she would \u201cjust break\u201d, she suspects.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d say, \u2018It\u2019s me, I got the tap on the shoulder, it\u2019s me. My hand is terrible. I have all of these chips and I\u2019m lying.\u2019 Maybe that\u2019s just some sort of psychological fear that I have. We all have that thing, \u2018Oh I\u2019m just going to jump off the side of the cliff\u2019, and you never would.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the podcast she demurs at the idea, but she agrees she could \u201cpotentially\u201d write a book. It was a childhood ambition. \u201cBut I always thought it would be fiction, and I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s in me, to be quite honest. Now I feel I\u2019m so used to writing short form, for broadcast, that it would be difficult to expand.\u201d<\/p>\n

How about a novel set in a fictional but thinly veiled radio station \u2013 or a national broadcaster, perhaps?<\/p>\n

\"ClaireClaire Byrne at The Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin. Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill <\/p>\n

\u201cDo you think I would get away with that? Memoir disguised as fiction?\u201d<\/p>\n

It would probably sell.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt probably would, but I might also get in trouble for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Byrne does not like the feeling that she is in trouble. In an interview with the Sunday Independent earlier this year, she said the presenter pay cap introduced by director general Kevin Bakhurst<\/a> in the wake of RT\u00c9\u2019s corporate-governance scandals \u201cfelt like the organisation was wagging its finger\u201d at her, and that this feeling of being \u201cmarked\u201d contributed to her decision to leave for Newstalk.<\/p>\n

Notwithstanding her keenness not to \u201cget too comfortable\u201d, too bored, she might not have left RT\u00c9 had it not been for \u201call the stuff\u201d, she says, meaning her former employer\u2019s failure to properly disclose how much it paid Ryan Tubridy and the crisis<\/a> that ensued.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, I think I wouldn\u2019t be honest if I didn\u2019t say it weighed heavily on me. It did. I wasn\u2019t comfortable with any of it, you know, and I felt like I was wrapped up in something that wasn\u2019t of my making. It had nothing to do with me, but yet we were all being tarred with the same brush. So I might have stayed, but then when somebody else comes along and says here\u2019s the opportunity for a fresh new start, it was very tempting, and that\u2019s how I ended up in Newstalk.\u201d<\/p>\n

She got used to having her RT\u00c9 pay disclosed publicly \u2013 it peaked at \u20ac350,000 when she was presenting both Radio 1\u2019s Today with Claire Byrne and Claire Byrne Live \u2013 but she won\u2019t miss that aspect of her old job either. \u201cIt is a more comfortable place to be to have your private business be your private business. I understand why it\u2019s not in the public service, but it is nice to be out of all of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ClaireClaire Byrne at The Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin. Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill <\/p>\n

So she doesn\u2019t have to reveal how much Newstalk, owned by German media group Bauer, pays her, but it seems there was no possibility of RT\u00c9 being able to compete with a counter-offer. Indeed, the cap would have obliged Byrne, who was paid \u20ac280,000 in recent years, to take a pay cut at her next contract renewal.<\/p>\n

A consequence of the various departures and the new regime at RT\u00c9 was that she became its highest-paid presenter in her final year there, becoming the first woman to occupy top spot.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe a part of me should feel proud of that, but I\u2019ve never really looked at it in that way because there was so much criticism of salaries, and people felt so aggrieved by the fact that you were being paid that much. Maybe I should change the narrative in my mind and say I clawed my way up to get to that point,\u201d she says, with a short, wry laugh.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have had some people say to me, \u2018Isn\u2019t it great that there is a woman at that level?\u2019 And maybe one day I\u2019ll look at it like that, but I think there\u2019s a bit of trauma associated with it at the moment, so I\u2019m not there yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

She is sensitive to the reality that most RT\u00c9 employees could only dream of being in her shoes. \u201cI worked with people who worked really, really hard, and who were paid a lot less than I was, but I suppose there is a premium for being the face of it and taking all of the criticism, and for looking at your phone and seeing awful things being said about you and all belonging to you. There is a premium for that as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes people say nice things \u2013 a clip from her 2021 television interview with Nigel Farage, for instance, continues to attract praise on social media, with the Reform UK leader seen, in the words of one Reddit user, \u201cgetting his arse handed to him\u201d by Byrne. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt comes up a lot, the Farage interview. There\u2019s nothing about it for ages and then there\u2019ll be a resurgence. Look, it was me doing my job,\u201d she says, noting drily that it \u201chasn\u2019t harmed him\u201d.<\/p>\n

A culture of impunity may well have sprung up elsewhere, but Irish politicians remain accountable to the public through the media, she thinks. \u201cThey\u2019re not hiding.\u201d<\/p>\n

But a \u201creal aggression\u201d infiltrated political interviewing a couple of years ago and that was counterproductive, she believes. \u201cI always think if I\u2019m listening to an interview, I need to be learning something. I need to find out, well, what is this policy or who is this new minister or what is their position, and you\u2019re not going to get that by shouting at them or by cutting them off or not letting them answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trick is to treat politicians with respect while remaining conscious that they have been media-trained, and getting past that. \u201cYou would always get the, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s a great question\u2019, which drives me round the twist. I have an imaginary scoreboard. I give myself 10 points every time, knowing somebody has told them to say that.\u201d<\/p>\n

She asked questions of another kind at RT\u00c9 via Ireland\u2019s Smartest, her foray into the \u201creally intense\u201d business of quiz-hosting. \u201cQuizzers are very serious about their art,\u201d she says. Airing right before the 2023 scandal broke, it turned out to be a one-and-done series. \u201cIt was possible, perhaps, that it might have run again, if things had been different.\u201d<\/p>\n

But she didn\u2019t ever fancy presenting the Late Late Show.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just didn\u2019t. I saw how all-consuming it was and I saw Ryan being out and about and how much attention that he got, and all of the pressure around the big nights, like the Toy Show, and I just didn\u2019t want that for me. I didn\u2019t want it for my family either. I just think it\u2019s a whole other level. See, I never really went into this game to be famous, believe it or not. It\u2019s a byproduct of what I do. But when the fame outgrows the gig, that\u2019s when I start to get nervous and I back away.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I feel more confident in my decisions. I trust myself more\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Claire Byrne on turning 50<\/p>\n

Byrne grew up on a family farm near Mountrath, Co Laois, with her parents, Tom and Breda Byrne, and five siblings. Her father died in 2021, and her return to Laois as part of Newstalk\u2019s summer tour evoked some fond childhood memories. \u201cMy dad loved Stradbally. We always went to the steam rally festival there every August, and we\u2019d always get the lovely cones, and it was just lovely to be back there with the sun shining.\u201d<\/p>\n

She started a social-science degree at University College Dublin, but later switched to a journalism course at the College of Commerce in Rathmines, after which she moved to Jersey, working for the commercial radio station Channel 103 FM, then BBC Radio Jersey, before returning to work as a news editor for her first employer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was 23 and I thought, Oh God, I could be a news editor at 23. Now it turns out that I wasn\u2019t a very good news editor, because I\u2019m not a good manager of people. I\u2019m no good at the logistics. I\u2019m just terrible at it. So that may have been a mistake. Sometimes I ask myself, Oh, what would have happened if I had stayed with the BBC? But I found the BBC very intimidating.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ClaireClaire Byrne at St Stephen’s Green, Dublin. Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill <\/p>\n

She came back to Ireland in 1999 to present Ireland AM on TV3, which was then just a year on air. She had never been on TV before. \u201cIt was such a blast,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was young and it was exciting and, yeah, we felt like we were real trailblazers. Which we were in a way.\u201d<\/p>\n

When she joined RT\u00c9 after her first spell at Newstalk, she fronted The Daily Show, alongside D\u00e1ith\u00ed \u00d3 S\u00e9, and Radio 1\u2019s Late Debate, before graduating to Prime Time, then the two shows with her name above the door. But her experience of other places meant she wasn\u2019t afraid of the world beyond Montrose. \u201cI wasn\u2019t an RT\u00c9 lifer, so maybe that made it a little easier to move on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her itchy feet mean she has friends across the media, \u201cwhich is brilliant, because I love keeping in touch with all the gossip from all the places I used to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

She has no television projects in development right now, her 15 hours of live radio and the new podcast being enough. \u201cI couldn\u2019t find space to do anything bigger than tie my own shoelaces,\u201d she says. \u201cOne thing I learned from doing too much work previously is just to keep the balance, because my people at home just want to know what\u2019s for dinner, really, and if I can take them to the beach.\u201d<\/p>\n

She lives in Wicklow with her husband, Gerry Scollan, and their three children, Patrick, Jane and Emma, who are aged 12, 11 and on the cusp of nine, respectively, and \u201cstill need Mammy\u201d.<\/p>\n

RT\u00c9 One viewers famously got a glimpse of her home set-up at the outset of the Covid emergency in March 2020 when she broadcast an episode of Claire Byrne Live from her garden shed while isolating, triggering some \u201cshed envy\u201d \u2013 these days the shed is used as a home office by Scollan, a Microsoft executive.<\/p>\n

\"ClaireClaire Byrne presenting her show on RT\u00c9 One while in isolation during Covid <\/p>\n

She gets up at 5am and tunes in to the BBC World Service. At 6am, as she gets in the car, she listens to Newstalk\u2019s Breakfast Briefing, presented by Shane Beatty, which she thinks is \u201cthe most useful programme for a journalist in Ireland\u201d, then it\u2019s back to BBC Radio 4 until she reaches the office. Beyond this routine, she likes audiobooks (Land by Maggie O\u2019Farrell<\/a> is her current fix), finds Pat Kenny\u2019s radio voice settles her and misses Marian Finucane.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was terrified when I had to go into her studio to throw forward to my [Saturday] show, which came on after hers. She would look at me over her glasses: \u2018What have you got for me now?\u2019 she seemed to be saying. And she was always very supportive, actually, but it felt like you were going into the lion\u2019s den.\u201d<\/p>\n

She is in \u201ca good rhythm\u201d now at Newstalk, where the audience is younger and she gets the sense that she is \u201cspeaking to people who are maybe more my own vintage\u201d.<\/p>\n

She certainly doesn\u2019t sound overly stressed about the task of converting Radio 1 listeners to her new show. It will take a full year of listenership surveys before anyone can properly discern if she has built on Kenny\u2019s final audience of 206,000 for the slot, and though she\u2019s not convinced that the figures ever tell you that much, she would like to reach her predecessor\u2019s peak audience of 244,000. \u201cThere\u2019s no reason why we can\u2019t get there. I really hope we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the podcast, Byrne is aware that she is late to a crowded party. She concedes it would be \u201cvery difficult\u201d to have a breakthrough hit now, \u201cunless you are Louis Theroux\u201d, but that\u2019s not her aim or expectation. \u201cI\u2019m not waiting for the moment when I have a million listens, and we\u2019re home and hosed.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an exceptionally hot day in Dublin, and Byrne radiates a summery yet polished look in her bright orange check shirt \u2013 a Vinted purchase \u2013 while seeming far sparkier than most 5am risers would be. She gives the strong impression that her 50s are panning out very well so far.<\/p>\n

She almost said \u201cnow that I\u2019m in my 40s\u201d earlier in our conversation, she admits, and had to remind herself midflow that she has crossed this threshold.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I do feel that it\u2019s been good for me in my head because I feel more confident in my decisions. I trust myself more. Like I would have doubted myself a little more, I think, earlier in my life, certainly in my professional career. \u2018Am I making the right choice here?\u2019 Whereas now I am more assured.\u201d<\/p>\n

She knows what\u2019s important to her, she says. \u201cYou have to do the things that make you happy, so that you\u2019re a happy person when you go home. Ultimately, that\u2019s all that matters \u2013 the people who love you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photographs: Dara MacD\u00f3naill<\/p>\n

Hair: Hillary O\u2019Reilly<\/p>\n

Make-up: Gabriela Paschoal<\/p>\n

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