Daire Brehan (7 August 1957, in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

– 30 August 2012, in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

) was an Irish

actress An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...

, broadcaster and

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdiction (area), jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include arguing cases in courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, jurisprud ...

who presented a variety of

BBC Radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927. The service provides national radio stations cove ...

programmes during the 1990s including ''Language Live'', for BBC Radio 5, '' You and Yours'', ''The Afternoon Shift'' (1995–98) and ''Pick of the Week'' for

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

, a

documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

''Too Many Songs'' on American comic songster

Tom Lehrer Thomas Andrew Lehrer (; born April 9, 1928) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, satirist, and mathematician, who later taught mathematics and musical theater. He recorded pithy and humorous, often Music and politics, political songs that ...

for

BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the List of most-listened-to radio programs, most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 14 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the sta ...

, ''Pick of the World'' for

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is a British Public broadcasting, public service broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception area, language selection and audience reach. It broadcas ...

, and ''Today’s Agenda'' for

BBC Radio Kent BBC Radio Kent is the BBC's local radio station serving the county of Kent. It broadcasts on FM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios at The Great Hall in Royal Tunbridge Wells. According to RAJAR, the station has a weekly audie ...

. Prior to her broadcasting career, she worked as an actress on stage and TV in Ireland. Following a scholarship to the Contemporary Theatre of Wroclaw in Poland, she returned to Ireland in 1985 and co-founded, with director

Maciek Bernatt-Reszczynski Maciej (Polish pronunciation: ) is a Polish given name, the etymological equivalent of Matthias. Its diminutive forms are Maciek, Maciuś. Namedays according to Polish calendar: 30 January, 24 February, 14 May Maciej may refer to: Arts and ent ...

, the theatre company ''Theatre Unlimited'', acting in many productions which included work inspired by modern Eastern European theatre and the Irish cultural tradition. Her broadcasting work began with

RTÉ Radio 1 RTÉ Radio 1 () is an Irish national radio station owned and operated by RTÉ and is the direct descendant of Dublin radio station 2RN, which began broadcasting on a regular basis on 1 January 1926. The total budget for the station in 2010 w ...

, for whom she presented programmes including ''Sounding Out'' and ''Brehan’s Law'', the latter drawing on her earlier legal training. As an undergraduate in the 1970s at

Trinity College Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...

her law tutors included

Mary McAleese Mary Patricia McAleese ( ; ; ; born 27 June 1951) is an Irish activist lawyer, academic, author, and former politician who served as the president of Ireland from November 1997 to November 2011. McAleese was first elected as president in 1997, ...

who went on to become president of Ireland, and former Irish President and UN Commissioner,

Mary Robinson Mary Therese Winifred Robinson (; ; born 21 May 1944) is an Irish politician who served as the president of Ireland from December 1990 to September 1997. She was the country's first female president. Robinson had previously served as a senato ...

. Moving on from BBC Radio 4 in the late 1990s, she returned to the law to convert her Irish law degree to meet UK requirements and was called to the Bar in July 2002 under her birth name Daire Brennan-Holahan, subsequently practising in criminal defence and prosecution. As a prosecutor she appeared on behalf of the

National Probation Service The Probation Service (formerly the National Probation Service) for England and Wales is a statutory criminal justice service, mainly responsible for the supervision of offenders in the community and the provision of reports to the criminal cour ...

and Local Authorities in prosecutions in the Crown Court, and as a defence barrister she represented clients on a wide array of charges. In 2005 she was called to the Bar of the Republic of Ireland. She was a member of the

Inner Temple The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as the Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court and is a professional association for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practice as a barrister in England and Wa ...

and also the founder and Hon Secretary of the Inner Temple Residents' Association, and in 2012 was elected a Bencher of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. From April 2007, while continuing to work as a consultant trainer to the legal profession, she also worked as a qualified

Pilates Pilates (; ) is a type of mind-body exercise developed in the early 20th century by German physical trainer Joseph Pilates, after whom it was named. Pilates called his method "Contrology". Pilates uses a combination of around 50 repetitive e ...

Instructor and

holistic Holism is the interdisciplinary idea that systems possess properties as wholes apart from the properties of their component parts. Julian Tudor Hart (2010''The Political Economy of Health Care''pp.106, 258 The aphorism "The whole is greater than t ...

massage Massage is the rubbing or kneading of the body's soft tissues. Massage techniques are commonly applied with hands, fingers, elbows, knees, forearms, feet, or a device. The purpose of massage is generally for the treatment of body stress or pa ...

therapist.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Brehan, Daire 1957 births 2012 deaths Alumni of Trinity College Dublin BBC radio presenters Irish stage actresses Irish television actresses Irish radio presenters Irish barristers Members of the Inner Temple RTÉ Radio 1 presenters Irish women radio presenters Actresses from County Dublin Lawyers from County Dublin Broadcasters from County Dublin Pilates instructors 20th-century Irish women lawyers 21st-century Irish women lawyers 20th-century Irish lawyers 21st-century Irish lawyers