Denis Tuohy (born 2 April 1937,
Belfast,
Northern Ireland) is a television broadcaster,
newsreader and
journalist and actor.
Tuohy attended
Queen's University, Belfast, where he learned to debate and acquired an interest in acting.
In 1960, he appeared in ''
Over the Bridge'', a play written by
Sam Thompson and directed by
Jimmy Ellis Jimmy Ellis may refer to:
* Jimmy Ellis (boxer) (1940–2014), American boxer
* Jimmy "Orion" Ellis (1945–1998), American singer
* Jimmy "Preacher" Ellis (born 1935), American musician
* Jimmy Ellis (1938–2012), lead singer of The Trammps
* ...
.
Later that year, Tuohy became the first
Catholic broadcaster for
BBC Northern Ireland
BBC Northern Ireland ( ga, BBC Thuaisceart Éireann; Ulster-Scots: ''BBC Norlin Airlan'') is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Northern Ireland. It is widely available across both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ire ...
.
Tuohy moved to London in 1964 to work for the new
BBC2
BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...
.
At the channel's launch that April, he was scheduled to be the first face on air.
However, there was a power failure on the opening night, and newsreader
Gerald Priestland
Gerald Francis Priestland (26 February 1927 – 20 June 1991) was a foreign correspondent, presenter and, later, a religious commentator for the BBC.
Early life and work
Gerald Priestland was the son of (Joseph) Francis ('Frank') Edwin Priestl ...
was briefly seen before transmission was aborted and the official launch postponed until the day after. The opening broadcast began with a shot of a burning candle and Tuohy then blowing it out.
Tuohy participated in several of the
BBC's
current affairs Current affairs may refer to:
News
* Current Affairs (magazine), ''Current Affairs'' (magazine) a bimonthly magazine of culture and politics.
* Current affairs (news format): a genre of broadcast journalism
* Current Affairs, former name for Behi ...
programmes of the 1970s, including ''
Tonight'' and
the long-running ''
Panorama
A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined in ...
'', and, after moving to
Thames Television, he was a reporter and presenter for ''
This Week'' (and ''TV Eye'', 1978–1986). He interviewed
Margaret Thatcher in the leadup to the
1979 United Kingdom general election
The 1979 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 3 May 1979 to elect 635 members to the British House of Commons.
The Conservative Party, led by Margaret Thatcher, ousted the incumbent Labour government of James Callaghan with ...
.
Communication specialist
Geoffrey Beattie
Geoffrey Beattie is a British psychologist, author and broadcaster. He is Professor of Psychology at Edge Hill University and has been visiting professor at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California Santa ...
analysed the interview extensively in a work on patterns of interruption in conversation. During the 1990s, he was a newscaster for ITN, usually anchoring overnight bulletins and the ''
ITV Morning News
''ITV News at 5:30'' was an early morning news bulletin on the British television network ITV, which was broadcast from 15 February 1988 until 21 December 2012. It was produced by ITN.
The 30-minute programme covered British national and interna ...
'', and also worked on several documentaries.
On returning to live in Ireland in 2001 Tuohy took up acting again, playing roles in RTE's ''
Fair City'', ''
The Clinic'', and ''
Fallout''.
and BBC NI's "Betrayal of Trust." He also wrote a memoir, ''Wide-Eyed in Medialand: A Broadcaster's Journey''.
[''Wide-eyed in Medialand: A broadcaster's journey'', by Denis Tuohy, Blackstaff (2005)] As a broadcaster he has written and presented over twenty documentaries for UTV particularly The Troubles I've Seen. He has made many contributions to BBC Radio Ulster's Thought for the Day. A collection of them, Streets and Secret Places, was published in 2021.
References
Notes
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External links
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1937 births
Living people
BBC newsreaders and journalists
ITN newsreaders and journalists
Mass media people from Belfast
20th-century male actors from Northern Ireland
21st-century male actors from Northern Ireland
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