![\"Today](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/00250392-614.jpg\"\/)
\nPhoto Credit: Miki Barlok<\/p>\n
As she returns to the Today show for a 15th season, Maura Derrane tells Clare O’Mahony why she thinks the show chimes with its viewers, how her innate curiosity makes it her natural media home and getting evil with D\u00e1ith\u00ed \u00d3 S\u00e9 just before they go on air,<\/p>\n
“Everywhere I go in Ireland, and even away, if you meet an Irish person, they\u2019re like, ‘When are you back to the show?\u2019,” says Maura Derrane. “It\u2019s become a staple, and I think that\u2019s so brilliant.”<\/p>\n
She says she had just such queries recently while shopping, as one person after another asked when Today would be returning after its summer break. 14 years on air, the programme is woven into the rhythm of its viewers\u2019 lives, ending as the summer begins and returning as children settle back into school.<\/p>\n
That rhythm applies to Maura too, and as she sends her son Cal into his final year of primary school, she is getting ready to resume her own familiar routine and return to RT\u00c9 Cork for the 15th season of Today.
“I\u2019m excited to go back on air,” she says. “Once the children go back to school, we\u2019re almost back. As I\u2019m gearing up to get my son ready for school, I\u2019m also gearing myself up to go back to the show.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s a kind of home from home in Cork, and a lot of the people I work with have been there since the beginning. There\u2019s a real family feeling because we\u2019re not a big team, but we\u2019ve been together for a long time.”<\/p>\n
\nPhoto Credit: Miki Barlok<\/p>\n
The summer break gave Maura time for trips to Italy and Portugal, although much of her summer was spent at home on Inis M\u00f3r. Her mother Bridgie is now 90, and those weeks allow Maura to make up for time away during the working year. She says that Cal, who has a cousin a few years older there, loves the island too.<\/p>\n
Going home also means returning to the garden and food she grew up with. Her family has always grown potatoes and vegetables in a centuries-old way, using seaweed gathered on the island\u2019s shore, while her sister Barbara, who is also an artist, now grows grapes in a polytunnel. “She\u2019s totally exotic down there,” Maura laughs. “She\u2019s like Tahiti-slash-Inis M\u00f3r!”<\/p>\n
The island provides a quiet counterpoint to the precisely timed, busy world Maura will return to on September 21.<\/p>\n
Now in its 15th season, Today began in 2012 when Maura and D\u00e1ith\u00ed \u00d3 S\u00e9 were offered the job in Cork, without knowing how long the new programme might last.<\/p>\n
“There was no, \u2018You are here for a year, three years, four years or five.\u2019 It was just, \u2018We\u2019re now beginning and we\u2019re starting a journey. We don\u2019t know where that\u2019s going to end.\u2019 It was year on year, and that\u2019s how we\u2019ve always worked. The show has become a fixture. I think it\u2019s now a legacy show. Our viewers are so invested and it is part of their daily lives.”<\/p>\n
![\"Maura](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/00250393-614.jpg\"\/)
\nPhoto courtesy of the RT\u00c9 Guide.<\/p>\n
Maura has been part of RT\u00c9\u2019s afternoon output since 2009, progressing from The Afternoon Show to Four Live and then Today. Last year, she became an RT\u00c9 staff member after many years as a contractor.<\/p>\n
“There\u2019s stability with that, which is great,” she says. “I\u2019ve been part of the afternoon schedule for the last 17 years, and I\u2019m thrilled about that. We journeyed with the show, and it\u2019s such a big part of my life now.”
The ease viewers see on screen is supported by a production in which every interview and movement is worked out in advance by the experienced team behind the cameras. Maura and fellow host D\u00e1ith\u00ed may appear to wander casually from couch to kitchen, but each “walk and talk” is written into the script and rehearsed. “It\u2019s second by second, minute by minute,” she explains.<\/p>\n
“We come in in the morning, get our scripts and briefs, and know the guests and all the timings. Then we do a full rehearsal at 1.30. The producer is in your ear from the gallery, and if you have to move during an interview, you walk across for the cameras. There are a lot of moving parts to make that relaxed feeling work. D\u00e1ith\u00ed, Sin\u00e9ad [Kennedy] and I are at the front, but the people behind us are doing the work too. It\u2019s a well-oiled machine.”<\/p>\n
At the centre is Maura\u2019s partnership with D\u00e1ith\u00ed, a friendship which extends beyond the studio. Their backgrounds in Gaeltacht communities gave them common ground from the outset, and they speak Irish together constantly.<\/p>\n
After almost 14 years, each knows exactly how to wrong-foot the other too.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019re very much in tune with each other. We\u2019re like people who have been married for 100 years, finishing each other\u2019s sentences, which is worrying sometimes,” she says. “D\u00e1ith\u00ed is a great man for the stories. He really would make you laugh, and I have to be ready for him.<\/p>\n
“Sometimes we\u2019re testing each other. The team will be counting down to going on air, 10, nine, eight\u2026and I\u2019ll say something just as he\u2019s about to read, \u2018Hi, welcome back.\u2019 I always know how to make him laugh, and I\u2019ll say something that really throws him. It\u2019s one of my favourite things to do. I can be evil just before we go on air because I want him to lose it.”<\/p>\n
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The fun aspect of the show is a large element of its popularity, but it is only part of what Maura believes Today should offer. She is committed to bringing viewers useful information, particularly around health and well-being. Her approach to interviews owes much to the curiosity that first led her into journalism.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m always thinking of the viewer,” she says. “When I\u2019m asking questions, I\u2019m wondering, \u2018What do they want me to ask now? What are they shouting at the television?\u2019 I\u2019m a very nosy person. I want to find out everything about everything.”<\/p>\n
She continues, “When I\u2019m interviewing a well-known person, I look back on different interviews they\u2019ve done. I like to find a little vignette they maybe haven\u2019t told people before. The most important thing on live television is to listen. When a guest says something you\u2019re not expecting, you don\u2019t just go to the next question. They might go down a completely different and more interesting path.”<\/p>\n
She traces this curiosity back to her own mother, Bridgie. When she and her sisters (Ro\u00eds\u00edn, Barbara and Rita, who passed away in 2023) were teenagers, their friends sought her mother\u2019s advice because she was liberal, open-minded and never judgemental. “My mother always had this natural curiosity for learning everything at any time, and I think I took that from her,” she says.<\/p>\n
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She says her son Cal\u2019s curiosity lies on the other side of the camera. When he was small, Maura thinks he assumed everybody\u2019s mother was on television. Now 12, he is interested in the technology behind her job. He draws, makes his own games and is already a skilled editor, which his mother puts to use. “I say, \u2018Cal, you have to edit my Instagram things. It\u2019s better that you edit this.\u2019 He says, \u2018No, I don\u2019t,\u2019 and I say, \u2018You have to do it. You cost me enough to run,\u2019” she laughs.<\/p>\n
When she once called him shortly before going on air, he spotted an automatic camera and demanded a tour. “He was saying, \u2018What\u2019s that, and how many are there?\u2019 I was like, \u2018I\u2019ve got five minutes to be in position to open the show, so goodbye, child.\u2019”<\/p>\n
As a Dubliner, Cal finds lots of aspects of Inis M\u00f3r fascinating. His mother recounts how a bull behind the house began answering another several fields away, its strange call filling a quiet evening. “All you could hear were curlews in the background, which have come back, thank God. Then there was this weird, almost primordial sound. It sounded like a dinosaur, as if we know what dinosaurs sounded like. Those funny things in the country are really cool when you have a child like him who is very Dublin now.”<\/p>\n
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The broadcaster chooses and styles everything she wears on Today. A recent off-the-shoulder white dress fell outside her usual “safe space” and prompted some hesitation.<\/p>\n
“I feel it is my duty for the Irish people to push myself a little bit,” she says. “Sometimes it\u2019s good to give yourself a kick up the ass fashion-wise. I thought, \u2018Is this weird, off my shoulder? Is it too short?\u2019 But there\u2019s nothing wrong with challenging yourself.<\/p>\n
“People say, \u2018You shouldn\u2019t wear that, you\u2019re this age\u2019 or \u2018You can\u2019t wear something short.\u2019 Really? It\u2019s about what suits your body shape and what works for you when you look in the mirror. If you\u2019re comfortable and it works for you, it\u2019s nobody else\u2019s business.”<\/p>\n
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The next familiar adventure is waiting in Cork, where Maura will reunite with the regular guests and the small team she regards as another family. What she wants to bring viewers is straightforward: “A good, entertaining afternoon show that is totally Irish.”<\/p>\n
As the seasons have passed, she has understood the place it occupies in people\u2019s days. “When you\u2019re within something and looking out, rather than looking in, you\u2019ve got a different view,” she says.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s only when I walk around the streets, meet people or travel abroad that I realise that. It\u2019s a lovely feeling to bring something that helps people with their day and entertains them during their day. You get a warm feeling, and I think that\u2019s such a worthwhile public service thing to do.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As she returns to the Today show for a 15th season, Maura Derrane tells Clare O’Mahony why she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60],"class_list":["post-631335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631335","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=631335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}