‘I wrote to Dobbo for career advice as teen, now I’m in his chair!’
CAITRÍONA Perry has revealed that she wrote to her now-colleague Bryan Dobson for career advice when she was a teenager.
Perry, who took over presenting RTÉ’s Six One News from Dobson and Sharon Ní Bheoláin with Keelin Shanley earlier this year, told VIP Magazine that Dobson was part of the reason she became a journalist. RTÉ’s former Washington Correspondent said she wrote to the newscaster, who now presents Morning Ireland, when she was just 14.
‘All I ever wanted was to be a journalist, so I wrote to all sorts of people who I thought were doing a good job, and Bryan was one of them.
‘What to study in college… similar to the kind of messages I get now, actually, which is really nice,’ she added. Sadly, the presenter doesn’t mention whether or not Dobson replied to her request.
Since beginning her new role in January, Caitríona said: ‘It’s not a job I ever saw myself doing, so it was a shock to be asked! It’s an adjustment process as it’s all happened so quickly. I’ve been out on the road for my whole career and now I find myself in a studio – most of the time.’
The Dubliner said her new regular working hours are a major perk to the job.
‘In Washington, I was working at 1am or 2am, doing Morning Ireland, because that’s how it worked with the time difference, whereas now I work Monday to Friday and when I finish up a broadcast, I can go meet friends for dinner by 8pm!’