Gavan Reilly: I often don’t take myself seriously enough

Gavan Reilly: I represented Ireland at the International Mathematical Olympiad in Tokyo in 2003, which gave me license to say I am (technically) an Olympian, as long as you overlook my poor performance and the fact it was maths. Picture: @gavreilly / Twitter

I grew up just outside Rathmolyon — a small village halfway between Enfield and Trim in County Meath. My dad, Dom, is a plumber and my mother, Mary, a public servant. My brother Dave was born when I was five. It was a quiet but happy childhood. We never seemed to want for anything — and we always had great holidays. Dad often worked six-day weeks, and Mum would often put in overtime hours. We’d be minded after school by my mother’s parents who only lived a few doors down. Now I live in Knocklyon with my wife, Ciara, and our daughters Doireann, 2, and Bláthnaid, 7 months, and I too find myself working six-day weeks to try and give the family as much comfort as I can. It’s funny how the circle goes!

My earliest memory is quite indistinct, but I do remember there being lots of soccer on the telly in the summer when I was three, in what I later figured out was Italia ’90. I also vividly remember being on stage in a holiday resort in Majorca having a leather jacket put on me so that I could perform my party piece, which was ‘Hey Mona’ by Craig McLachlan, better remembered as playing Henry Ramsay in Neighbours. I can confidently say I did not know the words to the song. And I can only have been four years old. I suppose the act of being handed a microphone, and told to communicate things I did not fully understand, was useful training for my later life...

In hindsight, a lot of the signs of going into journalism or media were probably there, and I never realised or appreciated them. I watched Ireland beat Italy at USA ’94 with a sheet of notepaper out in front of me so that I could take notes for a match report; I fashioned a TV director’s headset out of K'nex so that I could act out the idea of barking production orders; I aspired to write a website review column for the Meath Chronicle. Yet it was only when I started doing album reviews for the University Observer in UCD —  which I did solely and explicitly to get free copies of those albums — that I truly realised I might enjoy making a job in the industry.

Richard Chambers, Gavan Reilly and Zara King present ‘The Group Chat’ a weekly video and audio offering where the trio bring viewers and listeners behind the scenes of the week’s biggest news stories

My proudest achievement is my kids. I can never believe I’m responsible for making them. Before that, I represented Ireland at the International Mathematical Olympiad in Tokyo in 2003, which gave me license to say I am (technically) an Olympian — as long as you overlook my poor performance and the fact it was maths.

I think my greatest quality is I am a good compartmentaliser. Work stuff is work stuff; personal stuff is personal stuff. I’m pretty good at parking one when it comes to having to focus on the other. I also think I’m a quick enough learner and can get to the nub of stuff relatively quickly, which is a very helpful quality to have in TV news — if you can impart the basic issues of a story in a clear and concise way, your viewer will be the better for it.

The person I turn to most is my wife, Ciara. For any big life decisions, hers is always the advice I put the most weight on. I often don’t take myself seriously enough and she’s good to remind me of what I’ve done and what I need to do. The closest I've come to a great challenge in my life is setting out on a mandatory Erasmus year in Germany in 2006, not long after meeting and falling in love with her. 

Gavan says the greatest challenge he has faced so far was doing long-distance with his now-wife Ciara Picture: @gavreilly / Twitter

I think my greatest skill is that I’m good at keeping things in perspective, even when there are surprises. I don’t overreact when I hear of new developments, which helps me to try and stay level-headed, both in my personal life and at work.

I’m genuinely surprised that so many people are so cynical about the motivations of those in public life. The pay is good but the hours are horrendous and the job security is awful: seeing it done up close, it’s not a job you would do to fill your pockets, but rather because you want to further a vision for how the country is run, and an overall wish to do good.

What scares me most in life is that the things we take for granted now — pluralism, temperate winters, mild summers, freedom of travel, the ability to live on dry land, security from nuclear war — will not be there for my kids to enjoy.

I do wonder where I’d have ended up if I hadn’t got involved in student media in UCD, or if I hadn’t met Ciara at the time I did. I graduated in 2009 when all my classmates were emigrating. I was offered a couple of jobs abroad but turned them down because I wanted to stay in Ireland with her and ended up working full-time for the paper in UCD which was my entry point into media. Had I not, I’d have graduated from Commerce & German and probably continued with a vague aspiration of being a stockbroker. That may have been a fulfilling life but I’m certainly glad things worked out the way they did.

Gavan Reilly is a political correspondent for Virgin Media. He presents The Group Chat with Richard Chambers and Zara King — a new weekly video and audio offering where the trio bring viewers and listeners behind the scenes of the week’s biggest news stories. Available on Spotify, Apple and Youtube.