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LAST UPDATE | 3 May 2024
LONGSTANDING RTÉ BROADCASTER Bryan Dobson has retired today from RTÉ after 37 years at the broadcaster.
In his farewell broadcast on the News at One programme this afternoon, Dobson thanked his colleagues at RTÉ, his listeners and viewers over the years and all the guests who have given interviews on the different shows he has presented.
After saying his thank yous and goodbyes, the veteran news presenter said, “Dobbo has left the building” as applause could be heard in the radio studio.
“They make me sound good,” he said of the production team on the News at One programme.
“Broadcasting is a team game and I’ve been lucky to work with some of the very best teams in this business,” he said.
Dobson also took a moment to thank politicians from across the spectrum for “making themselves accountable” by agreeing to do interviews with him.
“It’s a vital strength of our democracy that our elected representatives, the people who we choose to govern, come on the airwaves to answer for their decisions, and long may that continue,” he said.
He thanked his listeners and viewers, who he said “possess a highly developed waffle detector”.
Finally, he thanked his wife and two daughters for their support throughout his career, saying, “They have been my motivation and my strength and my support”.
“It’s been a great 37 years but the time has come to say, if I can borrow a phrase, that Dobbo has left the building.”
Dobson first joined RTÉ in 1987, and went on to present all of the station’s flagship news programmes. He is best known as the face of the Six One News, which he anchored for 21 years.
RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst said in January that Dobson “represents the best in public service journalism”.
“For many years, he has brought a calm authority to the most important stories,” Bakhurst said.
“Every day, he demonstrates a depth of knowledge and an absolute integrity in his work and has never been afraid to ask the toughest questions and hold the powerful to account. Personally, it has been a pleasure and a privilege to work with him,” he said.
Dobson first joined RTÉ in 1987 as a reporter with the RTÉ Radio One This Week programme. He was then appointed RTÉ’s Business Correspondent, as well as presenting the television business programme Marketplace.
In 1991, he became presenter of RTÉ’s One O’Clock News, later moving to present the Nine O’Clock News programme before being appointed anchor of the Six One News in 1996.
He spent 21 years at the flagship programme, before moving to be part of the presenting team on Morning Ireland in 2017, the most listened to radio programme in Ireland.
Dobson has also worked on a number of RTÉ documentary programmes including The Madness from Within, an account of the Irish Civil War; Witnesses to War, which featured interviews with Irish veterans of the Second World War and guest presented special programmes on the Lusitania and 1916 Rising for RTÉ Nationwide.
Elsewhere, Eileen Magnier also retired from RTÉ.
She signed off for the final time yesterday after close to 40 years with the broadcaster.
President Michael D Higgins was among those to pay tribute to Magnier and congratulated her on a “wonderful career in which she made history”.
Higgins said the well-wishes paid to her is a “testament to the commitment and professionalism demonstrated throughout her career”.
President Higgins has sent a message to Eileen Magnier following her retirement after 39 years of regional reporting for RTÉ pic.twitter.com/b9k1rUXjKt
— President of Ireland (@PresidentIRL) May 3, 2024
She was the first female correspondent for RTÉ and Higgins said he remembers Magnier for her “good judgement and sensitive reporting of the tragedy that unfolded in Creeslough”.
“She brought the immense and bewildering sense of loss being experienced by the local community into the consciousness of the wider public in a way that demonstrated the best of public broadcasting,” said Higgins.
With reporting from Hayley Halpin and David Mac Redmond
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I doubt it’s just Irish idiots doing this.
It’s a whole global idiocy thing.
Not gona lie, I marked myself safe, had no idea what it was. Nor had any knowledge of what happened in Nepal and coundnt undo it or remove it. On a lighter note people “unfriending ” “friends” on Facebook is rather amusing, probably indicates you were never their friend in the first place..
Outrage over nothing on Twitter. Say it ain’t so.
I don’t consider myself old but it feels like a lifetime ago since a stupid joke between friends stayed there and didn’t become fodder for the perpetually offended.
My outrage is intensifying. Soon I will reach peak SJW.
I was on Reddit earlier and saw two SJWs having it out over whether or not a mixed race Ms Universe representative from Japan was a good thing from a race angle, or a travesty from a feminist angle. But I suppose everyone needs a hobby.
Ah here, two of my american friends and a few English friends also did it, but any excuse for a bit of national self hatred….
Jesus people are shite
It’s only women complaining.
Isin’t it Ironic people using Twitter, to tell their twitter friends/followers that they are unfriending their Facebook friends/followers. #much ado about nothing..
Oh FFS! do people not have anything real to be getting upset about?
Children are dead beneath tonnes of rubble. Families wiped out.
Yeah, suppose it’s fine to mock the system that is helping families ensure their loved ones are safe. Absolute idiots.
Of course it’s fine. It doesn’t negatively affect anyone in any way whatsoever.
@daniel what system is that exactly, using social media and a diseaster to increase traffic and advertising revenue. If they really wanted they could donate not ask for 15million plus have people on the ground.
Havin’ the bantz, eh? Gas craic the lot of them. Gas craic altogether.
/sarcasm.
I for one am sooooo outraged by these sheep doing the same unfunny thing. I will let everyone know that I am outraged because I too am a sheep like the other outraged people.
Nobody I know has sunk that low. It says a lot about you & the company you keep if you know people doing this.
That’s just nepalling
Nice…..
Where’s the Leitrim safety check in?
Whomever did this you should be ashamed stone cold indifference to human beings suffering
It’s actually some sort of Facebook glitch as far as I’ve heard, not people trying to be funny.
Every worthless idiot thinks their opinion matters nowadays, telling the whole internet, and I include myself in that.
Is it not more of a Facebook problem? If it (wrongly) identifies someone as being at that location when they are clearly not, then is it also possible that Facebook marks them safe when they next use it ..stands to reason that they must be safe if they are on Facebook!!!
And this is one of the reasons we’re loved the whole world over, no doubt
have your say