Vincent Browne

For the American footballer, see Vincent Brown (disambiguation). For the Irish sculptor, see Vincent Browne (sculptor). For the English portrait artist, see Vincent Michael Brown.

Vincent Browne
Born	(1944-07-17) 17 July 1944 Broadford, County Limerick, Ireland
Nationality	Irish
Education	Castleknock College
Alma mater	University College Dublin
Occupation	Journalist / TV Presenter
Employer(s)	The Irish Times, The Sunday Business Post, TV3
Known for	Presenting TV3's Tonight with Vincent Browne
Spouse	Jean Browne
Children	Emma Julia

Vincent Browne (born 17 July 1944) is an Irish print and broadcast journalist. He is a columnist with The Irish Times and The Sunday Business Post and a part time ballsucker

From 1996 until 2007, he presented a nightly talk-show on RTÉ Radio, Tonight with Vincent Browne, which focused on politics, the proceedings of tribunals on political corruption and police misconduct. He now presents Tonight with Vincent Browne on TV3, which broadcasts from Monday to Thursday at 11.05pm.

Early life

Born in 1944, he grew up in Broadford, County Limerick, where he attended the local national school. He spent a year at the Irish language college in Ring, County Waterford, then a year at St Mary's secondary school in Dromcolliher, County Limerick, before going to Castleknock College (1957–1962). He graduated from University College Dublin with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Politics and Economics – where he also founded the oldest surviving UCD newspaper, the College Tribune in 1966. (www.collegetribune.ie)

Career

He worked on RTÉ's Late Late Show for five months in 1967–68. He reported on the Soviet and Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 for The Irish Times and then edited a monthly news magazine, Nusight in 1969–1970.

He was appointed northern news editor of the Irish Press group in 1970 (working for all three newspapers in the group, The Irish Press, the Evening Press and The Sunday Press) and covered the most intense and violent period of the Northern Ireland conflict. In 1974 he joined Independent Newspapers and, after a brief period in the Evening Herald, worked for the Sunday Independent, then edited by Conor O'Brien and later by Michael Hand.

He launched Magill magazine in September 1977 with Noel Pearson and Mary Holland. Magill became Ireland's foremost investigative publication. Among its writers were Gene Kerrigan, Pat Brennan and Paddy Agnew. He remained editor of Magill until 1983, when he became involved in the relaunch of the Sunday Tribune, with Tony Ryan, then of GPA later of Ryanair. A series of articles he published in Magill highlighting the links between the Workers' Party of Ireland and the Official IRA in the 1980s caused him and other journalists to receive death threats. After the publication of "The Lost Revolution: the Story of the Official IRA and the Workers' Party" it was revealed that the Official IRA had planned assasinating him by planting a bomb on his boat although the operation was called off at the last minute. He was editor of the Sunday Tribune until 1994. He has written a weekly column for The Irish Times since then and since 2000 has written weekly for The Sunday Business Post. He started broadcasting with RTÉ radio in 1996.

In 1997 he relaunched Magill magazine, which had ceased publication in 1990. In the 13 issues he published then, the magazine broke several major stories - one led to the establishment of the Planning Tribunal, originally chaired by Mr Justice Fergus Flood, another caused a committee of the Oireachtas to examine the DIRT scandal, another caused an investigation of insurance "churning" by Irish Life, a leading Irish insurance company. He sold the Magill title to Hosen publisher, Mike Hogan, in November 1998. He was called to the Irish Bar in 1997 and for a while practised as a barrister. He now practises on only a part time basis. In October 2004 he launched a current affairs magazine Village, which he was editor. Village ceased publication in August 2008 before being relaunched under a new editor Michael Smith. Vincent Browne now writes a column for Village magazine.

He was involved in a controversy over the tapping of his telephone by the Irish state from February 1975 to February 1983. When this was disclosed by former minister for justice Seán Doherty, Browne sued the State. He made a settlement with the State in 1997 which included an agreement to publish a statement on the settlement, stating, inter alia, that the State had intercepted his telephone conversations for reasons of State security – Browne had written much about the IRA in the early- to mid-1970s – while accepting that Browne had himself never been involved in subversion or crime. On being given access to the transcripts of 81, Browne claimed that it was apparent the motivation for the interception of his telephone conversations for the eight-year period had little to do with the security of the State – it was aimed at garnering information on his work as a journalist, entirely aside from his reporting of the IRA. Browne sought to have the agreement altered to permit a public acknowledgement that the intercepts were not done for security reasons. The then government of Fine Gael–Labour Party refused. He subsequently disclosed this himself on television and later in print.

For ten years he presented to Tonight with Vincent Browne on RTÉ Radio 1. In August 2000 he filled in for John Bowman on the RTÉ Television programme Questions and Answers. He also presented Prime Time on RTÉ One.

Since January 14, 2007 Browne has presented Tonight with Vincent Browne, a nightly current affairs show on TV3. Despite airing on what is usually considered a graveyard slot, the show has been highly successful with on average 166,000 viewers. Browne is noted for his rather acerbic style of presenting with the The Guardian describing him as "Ireland's Jeremy Paxman".

Politics

Browne was involved with the Dublin Anti H-Block Movement during the 1981 Irish hunger strike. In 1994 Browne sought a nomination for the Fine Gael party in that years European Elections or the possible general election of that year (it was thought a general election might follow the collapse of the Albert Reynolds government). He was rebuffed by the then leader of Fine Gael and later Taoiseach, John Bruton. He became a vocal critic of the party, publishing a number of articles on corruption within it.

A staunch critic of Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, in 1982 Browne appeared on 'The Late Late Show' to discuss the effectiveness of TDs where he poured scorn on Kenny, claiming he was "purporting" to be a TD. In October 2010 Browne was forced to make a public apology to Kenny after jokingly asking whether Fine Gael was requesting that he go into a dark room with a gun and bottle of whiskey. This was in reference to Fine Gael's position in the polls, where they were in second place to Labour, and a previous leadership challenge to Kenny by Richard Bruton. Kenny refused to appear on the leaders debate hosted by Browne on TV3 in the 2011 general election campaign.

Personal life

Browne is married to Jean and has two daughters; Emma (who is a qualified barrister also) and Julia. In September 2010 it was revealed that he decided to sell his home in Dalkey.

External links

• Village Magazine