Brian O'Donovan: 'Between Donald Trump and Conor McGregor, I was kept busy'

It’s been, in Brian O’Donovan's own words, quite the ‘wild rollercoaster’ being RTÉ’s Washington correspondent during Trump’s presidency

Brian O'Donovan, RTÉ Washington correspondent, picture: Marty Katz/washingtonphotographer.com 

As the saying goes, ‘May you live in interesting times’, and one thing is certain, there have never been more interesting times to be a news correspondent in Washington. When Brian O’Donovan, RTÉ’s representative in the US capital, took up the high-profile post at the start of 2018, he knew it was going to be eventful but no-one could have quite predicted the rollercoaster ride on which he was about to embark. And, while the rest of us look on queasily as the US lurches from one crisis to another under the leadership of Donald Trump, O’Donovan has relished every moment.

“When I started the job in January, 2018, Donald Trump had been a year in office and was making headlines every day. He was such a controversial figure, it was a huge story. You have the wild rollercoaster that has been the Trump presidency anyway, between impeachment, the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, the Ukraine investigation, the Mueller report, so many other things, then no sooner were we getting into the swing of things with the election campaign and the coronavirus hit, and all that came with that. Then we had the Black Lives Matter protests. Never a dull moment, it has been great,” he says.