Description
Book SynopsisThe warm, rich and fascinating memoir of beloved broadcaster Tommie Gorman.
When Tommie Gorman was growing up in Sligo in the 1960s, struggle was never far away but his household had a surplus of love and warmth. From modest beginnings as a local reporter at the Western Journal, where his deadlines were dependent on the bus schedule, Tommie landed at RTÉ, taking up the post of North-West correspondent in 1980. Over the next four decades he became a familiar presence in Irish homes, known for his coverage of Europe and Northern Ireland, as well as his unforgettable interviews with controversial figures including Gerry Adams, Roy Keane, Ian Paisley and Arlene Foster.
While revelling in his life as a journalist, he was also coping with the cancer diagnosis he received in 1994 and seeking ways to access life-saving treatments for patients who shared his rare form of the disease.
In this insightful and generous book, Tommie takes readers behind the scenes and shares some of his memories from Sligo to Stormont, via Brussels and Sweden, as he recounts forty extraordinary years of Irish history from his front-row seat and looks at what may lie ahead for the island.
Trade Review[A]
page-turner memoir of his life less ordinary...
a gem. -- John Downing * Irish Independent *
Gorman's narrative shines, as he outlines the history of his roots in Leitrim and Sligo, his family's modest means, his father's issues with alcohol, the encounters with want, with illness, with death, and all set against a panorama of 20th-century Irish social and political history: the family dramas and sorrows, and the swirl of national life that any reader will recognise, and understand. * Irish Times *
Tommie's memoir brims with his characteristic optimism, faith in humanity and an absence of cynicism rare in such a fine frontline journalist. He evokes many memories as well as gifting us new and welcome insights
into significant contemporary political, sporting and medical events.
-- Mary McAleese
Tommie Gorman is
the shining jewel in the crown of RTÉ news and current affairs -- Gay Byrne
Table of Contents1: Sligo: early years 2: The first job 3: The north-west years 4: Brussels 5: Power and loss 6: Living with cancer 7: Love, sport and the Roy Keane interview 8: Belfast 9: Compromise and power 10: The Queen and the changing of the guard 11: Brexit 12: The journey made and the road ahead
