Denis Tuohy (born 2 April 1937) is an Irish television broadcaster, newsreader, journalist, and actor.

Tuohy was born on 2 April 1937[1][2] in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He attended Queen's University, Belfast, where he learned to debate and acquired an interest in acting.[3] In 1960, he appeared in Over the Bridge, a play written by Sam Thompson and directed by Jimmy Ellis.[3][4][5] Later that year, Tuohy became the first Catholic broadcaster for BBC Northern Ireland.[6][7]

Tuohy moved to London in 1964 to work for the new BBC2.[6] At the channel's launch that April, he was scheduled to be the first face on air.[6] However, there was a power failure on the opening night, and newsreader Gerald Priestland was briefly seen before the transmission was aborted and the official launch postponed until the day after. The opening broadcast began with a shot of a burning candle and Tuohy then blowing it out.[8]

Tuohy participated in several of the BBC's current affairs programmes of the 1970s, including Tonight and the long-running Panorama, and, after moving to Thames Television, he was a reporter and presenter for This Week (and TV Eye, 1978–1986). He interviewed Margaret Thatcher in the leadup to the 1979 United Kingdom general election.[6][9] Communication specialist Geoffrey Beattie analysed the interview extensively in a work on patterns of interruption in conversation.[10][11] During the 1990s, he was a newscaster for ITN, usually anchoring overnight bulletins and the ITV Morning News, and also worked on several documentaries.

On returning to live in Ireland in 2001, Tuohy took up acting again, playing roles in RTE's Fair City, The Clinic, and Fallout.[3] and BBC NI's "Betrayal of Trust." He also wrote a memoir, Wide-Eyed in Medialand: A Broadcaster's Journey.[6][12] As a broadcaster, he has written and presented over twenty documentaries for UTV, particularly The Troubles I've Seen. He has made many contributions to BBC Radio Ulster's Thought for the Day. A collection of them, Streets and Secret Places, was published in 2021.

References

  1. ^ McIlwaine, Eddie (1 April 2017). "Why no one can hold a candle to my pal, birthday boy Denis Tuohy". Belfast Telegraph. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
  2. ^ "Happy Birthday Denis Tuohy, 75". The Times. 2 April 2012. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
  3. ^ a b c O'Connell, Brian (4 June 2006). "Broadcaster returns to first love". The Irish Times. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
  4. ^ Moriarty, Gerry (4 April 2014). "Bridge honouring playwright Sam Thompson opens in east Belfast". The Irish Times. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
  5. ^ Foy, Marie (31 May 2005). "'It's a slightly daft world'". Belfast Telegraph. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
  6. ^ a b c d e Fallon, Ivan (29 May 2005). "Wide-eyed in Medialand: a broadcaster's journey By Denis Tuohy". The Independent. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
  7. ^ "Making a breakthrough, Denis Tuohy". Chronicle: the story of BBC News in Northern Ireland.
  8. ^ "The day the lights went out". The Irish Times. 19 April 2014. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
  9. ^ Butler, David; Kavanagh, Dennis (1980). The British General Election of 1979. Springer. p. 216. ISBN 9781349047550.
  10. ^ Beattie, Geoffrey W. (1982). "Turn-taking and interruption in political interviews: Margaret Thatcher and Jim Callaghan compared and contrasted". Semiotica. 39 (1–2). CiteSeerX 10.1.1.136.5352. doi:10.1515/semi.1982.39.1-2.93. S2CID 15744264.
  11. ^ Beattie, Geoffrey W. (2 October 1980). "...but why can't they converse normally?". New Scientist. Reed Business Information. pp. 35–36.
  12. ^ Wide-eyed in Medialand: A broadcaster's journey, by Denis Tuohy, Blackstaff (2005)

Notes

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