About our Patron Miriam O’Callaghan

Miriam O'Callaghan was born and raised in Dublin. She qualified as a solicitor before beginning her broadcasting career on ITV's This is your Life. She joined the BBC as a producer in 1987, and went on to become a reporter on BBC2's Newsnight.

In the early ‘90s Miriam returned to Ireland to present RTE's current affairs flagship programme Prime Time, while continuing to cover the Northern Irish peace process for Newsnight.

In August 2000, Miriam co-founded Mint Productions, an independent production company that specialises in documentary.

Unusually for a current affairs presenter, Miriam was voted Best TV Personality at the Irish Film and Television Awards in 2003. To her surprise, she won the RTÉ Guide Style Award at the 2007 IFTAs following another public vote.

Outside of her work on Prime Time, Miriam has presented her own chat show, Saturday Night with Miriam, on RTÉ ONE for the past three summers and has also hosted two Test the Nation specials for the channel.

Miriam’s connection with DEBRA Ireland came about after she was involved in the filming of the first series of ‘Our Lady’s’ in 2004 which was based on the lives of families with children in Our Lady’s Hospital Crumlin.  During the series she met the Graham family and their very special son Adam (RIP) who had Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB).  Adam was one of the children featured in this series and Miriam formed a very strong bond with Adam and his family and subsequently became involved with DEBRA Ireland.

‘I am delighted to be patron of DEBRA Ireland and to support all the hard work they do in raising funds to support patient services and research.  Hopefully one day we will see a cure to this terrible condition.’