Donald Cockburn (13 March 1930 – 4 September 2017) was an Irish

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

presenter Presenter may refer to: People * News presenter, person who presents news during a news program * Sports commentator, an announcer who presents analysis of a sporting event * Radio personality, presenter or announcer on a radio show * Television ...

and newsreader. He is best known as a long-serving newsreader for Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), who anchored the broadcaster's main evening television news programmes during over thirty years of service. Cockburn was educated at

Synge Street CBS Synge Street CBS (colloquially Synger) is a boys' non-fee-paying state school, under the auspices of the Edmund Rice Schools Trust, located in the Dublin 8 area of Dublin, Ireland. The school was founded in 1864 by Canon ...

, later studying

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

and

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

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 ...

at night after receiving a dispensation from Archbishop

John Charles McQuaid John Charles McQuaid, C.S.Sp. (28 July 1895 – 7 April 1973), was the Catholic Primate of Ireland and Archbishop of Dublin between December 1940 and January 1972. He was known for the unusual amount of influence he had over successive gover ...

to do so. He originally joined RTÉ as a part-time announcer in 1958, and was made a full-time employee in 1972. He was formerly employed in

Dublin Corporation Dublin Corporation (), known by generations of Dubliners simply as ''The Corpo'', is the former name of the city government and its administrative organisation in Dublin since the 1100s. Significantly re-structured in 1660–1661, even more si ...

as head of wages in the engineering department. He retired twenty years later on 15 December 1992, having served as a newsreader for many years. His was known for cycling to RTÉ's Montrose Studios every day. He died on 4 September 2017.

References

1930 births 2017 deaths RTÉ newsreaders and journalists People educated at Synge Street CBS Journalists from Dublin (city) Broadcasters from County Dublin Alumni of Trinity College Dublin {{radio-bio-stub