Charlie Bird
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| Charlie Bird | |
 Bird (left) interviews Michael McDowell in May 2007
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| Born | September 9, 1949 Sandymount, Dublin, Ireland |
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| Nationality | Irish  |
| Education | Sandymount High School |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Employers | RTÉ News |
Charles "Charlie" Bird (Irish name: Cathal Ó hÉinigh) (born September 9, 1949) is an Irish journalist and broadcaster. He is currently the Chief News Correspondent with RTÉ News.
[edit] Life and career
Bird was born in Sandymount, Dublin in 1949. He was educated at Sandymount High School but left before he completed his Leaving Certificate. After working with pirate radio stations Bird joined the RTÉ newsroom in the late 1970s after several years as a successful researcher in RTÉ current affairs programmes, and since then has covered most of the major domestic and international stories of the last quarter century.
It is little remembered now, but in the late 1960s, Bird took an active interest in far left politics, being a member of Young Socialists.
In this role, along with Tariq Ali of the International Marxist Group, he attended the funeral of Peter Graham of Saor Éire (1967-1975) who was assassinated on 25 October 1971 in an internecine dispute. A photograph of the funeral shows Ali and Bird giving a clenched fist salute at the grave.[1]. Charlie Bird was recruited into RTÉ by Eoghan Harris in the mid 1970s.[1]
For many years in the 1990s Bird was the only point of contact between RTÉ and the Provisional IRA. He witnessed at first hand the ceasefires and the subsequent twists and turns of the peace process. In 1998, Bird and his colleague George Lee broke the National Irish Bank story.
On the international front, Bird reported on both Gulf Wars and was the only Irish journalist in Syria for the release of Brian Keenan. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from University College Dublin in 2002.
Bird was attacked during the Dublin Riots of February 25, 2006 and spoke of his personal experience - and of the way the attackers knew who he was and called him an "Orange Bastard" - on RTÉ News broadcasts later that evening. His attack was witnessed by Sunday Independent journalist Daniel McConnell who reported on the event the next day. Bird's appearance on the six o'clock news was criticised by The Sunday Times in its edition the following day, as it felt "Bird makes himself the story".
In recent times he went on adventures in the Amazon and Ganges. He also appeared on the 2007 People in Need Telethon as a wino wheedling his way around the RTÉ studio with a Lidl bag.
[edit] References
- ^ Ireland on Sunday, 1 October 2006
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