{"id":625133,"date":"2026-09-15T06:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T06:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/625133\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T06:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T06:56:09","slug":"oprah-winfrey-in-dublin-how-do-you-reach-the-highest-truest-expression-of-yourself-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/625133\/","title":{"rendered":"Oprah Winfrey in Dublin: \u2018How do you reach the highest, truest expression of yourself?\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

No sooner had one high-profile United States<\/a> visitor, Donald Trump, departed Ireland\u2019s shores, but another arrived in the person of Oprah Winfrey<\/a>. <\/p>\n

US presidents come and go, but Oprah \u2013 she\u2019s only known by her first name \u2013 is like the late Queen Elizabeth II was when she was alive: a fixture in all the tumult and changes in society. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s 50 years since Oprah started out as a television reporter on a local TV station, 40 years since the start of the Oprah Winfrey Show, which was the highest-rated daytime talkshow in the US for 25 years straight. At its peak, it was showing in 135 countries. <\/p>\n

Now aged 72, Oprah was introduced by interviewer David Meade at Dublin\u2019s 3Arena<\/a> as \u201cthe most powerful woman in the world\u201d. Hyperbole perhaps, but few women in the world have been so famous for so long.<\/p>\n

She never set foot in Ireland before this weekend. \u201cIt took me too long to get here,\u201d she acknowledged to the 8,000 people at the 3Arena who came to see her in an event organised by the Pendulum Summit and Front Row Speakers. <\/p>\n

She tried drinking Guinness with her friend Gayle King, a renowned TV presenter in her own right, in Dublin\u2019s Doheny and Nesbitt\u2019s pub when she got to Ireland, but admitted she found the bitterness an \u201cacquired taste\u201d. <\/p>\n

Among those in the audience were the novelist Claire Keegan<\/a>. Her novel, Small Things Like These, was chosen by Oprah for her prestigious book club in 2024. <\/p>\n

\"OprahOprah Winfrey chats to David Meade against a backdrop of her holding Guinness. Photograph: Conor McCabe Photography <\/p>\n

Oprah spoke for an hour-and-a-half in which she expounded on themes that she has been exploring for decades: self-expression, overcoming self-doubt, expressing empathy for others and trusting one\u2019s instincts. <\/p>\n

As a skilful communicator, she is adept at melding the modern language of self-help with the verbal fluency of a Bible preacher. <\/p>\n

We\u2019re all special, she says. The chances of that egg hitting that sperm and creating us are infinitesimally small, and smaller still for her. Her parents, she revealed, had never married and had sex a single time. \u201cI didn\u2019t know that,\u201d Meade said, rather startled. <\/p>\n

She continued by stating that everybody was called to do something in life whether that calling came from God or the universe. \u201cWhat is the real worth that you have come to do,\u201d she asked rhetorically. <\/p>\n

\"AnnMarie,AnnMarie, Bee, Brigid and Liz from Perrystown, Dublin 12, at the 3Arena to see Oprah Winfrey. Photograph: Conor McCabe Photography <\/p>\n

Her central message is that you can realise the purpose of your life no matter how unfulfilled you feel in that moment. <\/p>\n

She became as successful as she has done because she paid attention to the \u201cwhispers \u2013 God is silence. He doesn\u2019t make a lot of noise. You will only hear it when you are silent. When you follow that voice, you can\u2019t go wrong. Yours is always the right answer.\u201d <\/p>\n

Oprah said it was her own instincts not to use her show to humiliate guests even if it cost her ratings. She did it once at the start of the Oprah Winfrey Show when a man appeared with his wife and mistress \u2013 and the mistress revealed live on air that she was pregnant. \u201cThe worst thing you could do to anybody is to humiliate them,\u201d Oprah said. <\/p>\n

She vowed she would not turn her daytime chatshow into a human zoo. <\/p>\n

The goal of everybody is to reach the \u201chighest, truest expression of yourself as a human being \u2013 how do I keep rising in my life?\u201d <\/p>\n

She spoke at length about lessons learned from getting a role on the 1985 film The Color Purple without having any acting experience. <\/p>\n

She had hoped and prayed and given up getting a role in the film. She decided to surrender her ambition and let it go, having assumed it would go to a more experienced actress. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe second I had the feeling that I\u2019m going to be okay not getting this role, I got a phone call from [director] Steven Spielberg<\/a> offering me the part\u201d. <\/p>\n

As a woman who struggled with her weight all her life, Oprah told the audience how a weight-loss medication, the GLP-1 agonist, has worked for her making her feel better at 72 than she did at 32. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe GLP-1s have been miraculous in my life and changed things for me. The moment I went on GLP-1s, the food noises in my head stopped,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

What message would she like to leave her audience with, Meade asked her.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a life force that wanted you to be here. What is your dream, God\u2019s dream, the universe\u2019s dream for you?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No sooner had one high-profile United States visitor, Donald Trump, departed Ireland\u2019s shores, but another arrived in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[3265,114057,615,93,61,60,14043,18586,282,115],"class_list":["post-625133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-3arena","tag-claire-keegan","tag-dublin","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-oprah-winfrey","tag-steven-spielberg","tag-tv","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625133","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=625133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}