Cathal O'Shannon Obituary

The former RTÉ journalist and filmmaker Cathal O'Shannon has passed away. He was 83.
Cathal O'Shannon - Terry Wogan described him as possibly Ireland's greatest television journalist




Mr O'Shannon flew with the RAF during World War II - having joined with a forged baptismal certificate aged 16 - and later became a reporter with The Irish Times.
He also worked on the paper's London desk, where he met and married the love of his life, Patsy.
He was a journalist and documentary maker with RTÉ, filming the first deployment of Irish troops overseas on a UN mission to the Congo, among many other works.
But it is as a television presenter he is perhaps best remembered.
Terry Wogan described him as possibly Ireland's greatest television journalist and programmes - such as his interview with Muhammad Ali - became iconic pieces of television.
Among his other notable achievements was the Spanish Civil War documentary Even the Olives are Bleeding.
Paying tribute, Noel Curran, Director-General RTÉ, said: "Cathal O'Shannon has passed away almost on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the inception of Irish television broadcasting. He was without question one of the foremost talents of these first 50 years, with a combination of remarkable gifts.
"He could handle local Irish stories with charm, grasp major historical themes in longer documentary form, and in all forms and on all occasions he spoke to the viewer through the camera with remarkable ease and facility.
"He was, both on camera and in person, one of the most persuasive and gifted presenters ever to work with and on RTÉ. All of his present and former colleagues join in tribute to his major and singular contribution to our broadcasting. May he and his beloved Patsy rest in peace."
Glen Killane, Managing Director of RTÉ Television, said: "Cathal O'Shannon's contribution to RTÉ Television included some of the great moments in the RTÉ documentary and factual schedule over the past five decades, such as Emmet Dalton Remembers, Thou Shalt Not Kill, Rebellion and more recently his revisits to the Irish experience in World War II in Who Was Gunner Mason and the two-parter Ireland's Nazis. His seminal piece was by his own and many others' reckoning Even the Olives are Bleeding, in 1976, capturing both the Irish experience in the Spanish Civil War and the broader nature of that very bitter conflict.
"Cathal's talent was also measured in more than domestic terms. He was chosen to be one of the frontline talents on the BBC's Tonight programme in the early 1960s when the mould of British as well as Irish broadcasting was being shaped.
"His RTÉ studio interview with Muhammad Ali in 1972 was both one of the best such encounters RTÉ ever carried and one of the most relaxed and entertaining that Ali - then perhaps the world's greatest celebrity - ever did.
"And yet Cathal was equally at home travelling the highways and byways of Ireland reporting for Broadsheet and Newsbeat in the fledgling TV service days of the 1960s. He will be fondly remembered at RTÉ Television, and greatly missed."