Newsreader left red-faced after latest on-air gaffe

Poor old Aengus Mac Grianna — it’s one thing to have one newsreading gaffe under your belt but racking up your third in quick succession is quite another.

The dapper newsreader is no stranger to the odd gaffe on air but his most recent one on Wednesday night may be the one to send him viral and make him a star across the world.

Nobody told poor old Aengus that he was live on air for the 10pm headlines on the RTÉ digital news channel, so the plain people of Ireland got a full view of him applying a little bit of make-up and fixing his tie before word comes through his earpiece that he is, in fact, live on air. What follows is an hilariously pained facial expression before an angry exclamation of: “What?”

Just last month, he had difficulty getting through a report on the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 17 mission. At one point he paused and said: “I’ll try that again” before asking the teleprompter operator to “just go back to the very start of that”.

Even before that, Mr Mac Grianna had made his first foray into on-air gaffes with a classic pronunciation error, struggling to get over the surname of Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich.

Last night Mr Mac Grianna said: “It was a technical problem and simply one of the hazards of the trade. I can’t believe it’s been of such interest, but I am delighted that so many people are watching our digital news channel. And yes, I’m back to the desk as normal again today.”