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HOME NEWS

Brian O'Connell Image Name: Brian O'Connell Description: Brian O'Connell presents Home News on RTÉ Radio 1.

Our new series Home News sees presenter Brian O’Connell find out how Irish newspapers outside the Republic of Ireland are trying to keep Irish communities connected.

From Shoreditch to Sydney and New York to Newry, Home News is a new five part series in which journalist and broadcaster Brian O’Connell travels the world looking at how Irish newspapers outside the Republic are trying to keep Irish communities connected.

Along the way he meets new and past emigrants, Pulitzer prize-winning journalists, men on the run, elderly choirs and Pakistani newsagents, and also looks at how communities of the future might stay in touch with home.

We hear from the editors and journalists of newspapers such as the Irish Voice and the Irish Post, both of which have been a voice for their communities for decades. We go inside the newsrooms of these and other newspapers and hear about some of their best stories and campaigns, and also ask how they can remain relevant in an age when emigrants are now more connected with home digitally than ever. We also hear from a new generation of Irish emigrants who are redefining their sense of Irishness and experience abroad.

 

Programme 5: World Irish

TX Saturday 22 Dec, 7.30pm

Riverdance co-founder John McColgan’s new project WorldIrish.com, is a website that aims to connect the Irish diaspora in new ways in the future. The site describes itself as an online portal, and has a team of journalists who help source material and stories that they feel may be of relevance to the site’s members, many of who are of Irish extraction, but based outside Ireland. We drop into the offices of World Irish and also hear directly from some of the emigrants who have got in touch with the site, such as 107-year-old Mae Collins who lives in New York. We also examine the extraordinary story of the Irish Emigrant, which started as an email between colleagues in the 1980s and turned into the oldest online publication in the world. In this episode we go inside the Irish Times, where senior editors talk about how that newspaper is reaching out to new readers across the globe through its Generation Emigration project. And finally, emigrants, editors and journalists talk about what the future may hold for Irish community newspapers outside.
About Brian O’Connell

Brian O’Connell is an award-winning journalist, author and broadcaster. He is a weekly reporter on Today With Pat Kenny on RTE Radio 1, and has made a number of documentaries for the RTE Radio 1 Documentary on One strand. His documentary ‘I Could Have Danced All Night’ was shortlisted for a Celtic Media Award. Brian is also a regular on Irish television has appeared on The Daily Show, Tonight with Craig Doyle, The Late Late Show and also co-presented The Reel Deal. He is a weekly contributor to RTE’s new afternoon show, RTE Today. Brian writes for the Irish Times, and his book, Wasted: A Sober Journey Through Drunken Ireland, published in 2009, examined Ireland’s alcohol culture. Much to his wife’s annoyance, Brian likes to tweet. @oconnellbrian

This programme was made with the support of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland.

Presented and produced by Brian O’Connell

Executive Producer Garret Daly

Research Roisin O’Dea

Title Music Raymond Scannell