Tommy Meskill: "It can be foolish to form hard opinions too quick
At school, a teacher suggested that Tommy Meskill was not really cut out for a career in journalism. But the Clare man was not for turning. Donal O'Donoghue meets the co-anchor of the Six One News.
"A colleague once gave me a great piece of advice, saying, 'You should walk into the newsroom every day dressed as if you’re ready to present the Six One News.’"
Tommy Meskill, co-anchor of RTÉ’s Six One News, smiles at the wisdom of those words. Always be prepared, the Boy Scout motto is something he has long bought into.
"Once I finished on news2day I made a conscious effort to come into work every day in a suit," he says. It paid off. One lunchtime, just ahead of the TV news bulletin, Meskill, who was preparing a report, got a tap on the shoulder. He was on. Suited, booted and good to go.
"When I first chose to pursue a career in broadcast journalism, a lot of people thought that I was mad," he says of his days as a shy but determined teenager. "But I knew that it could work for me if I put in the time."
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On TV, the poised and primed Tommy Meskill comes across like a newsman from Central Casting, not a hair out of place or a phrase out of line. Of course, there’s much more to the broadcaster than a sharp suit and polished delivery. Today, on his day off, dressed in jeans and runners, he’s quiet-spoken, self-deprecating and quick to laugh when recalling the way he was ("much too serious").
In just 10 years with RTÉ, he has graduated from the children’s news show news2day via Morning Ireland and a few other cameo roles to the station’s London correspondent and, since December, has co-anchored, with Sharon Tobin, the flagship Six One News.
It’s a dizzying ascent, but then the man from Clare, who looks younger than his 31 years, always had a gut instinct for where he was going.
Meskill grew up in the GAA stronghold of Barefield just outside Ennis, the eldest of three with two younger sisters. "As a teenager, I was a bit obsessive about the news," he says.
"I used to do my homework listening to Mary Wilson on Drivetime on RTÉ Radio One, and I had this old radio set from my father that I would tune into different local radio stations across the country. One night, I was listening to Radio Kerry when I heard an ad for a radio course for secondary school students.
"I begged my parents to allow me to do it. They were surprised because I was quite shy as a teenager and thought my idea of going on radio was madness. But I did that five-day course in Tralee, and it was enough for me to realise that I truly loved radio, although initially I was thinking of a more behind-the-scenes job."
It wasn't just his parents, Tony and Anne-Marie, who thought a career in broadcasting might not be his thing. "There was a teacher who tried to convince mum to get me to change direction," he says. "And I had other people telling me that I should go into engineering. Thankfully, I persevered."
But he also battled his doubts, the inner voices suggesting an easier path. "I suppose I often acted older than I was. Maybe being the eldest child was part of that, and when I became a teenager, there was the Lehmann Brothers collapse, which was followed by a global recession. That had a big impact on how I saw the world, and it probably played a part in me getting even more interested in news and current affairs and radio."
In 2015, on the eve of the Marriage Equality Referendum, Meskill, then completing his final year as a communications student at DCU, was interviewed by the Irish Times.
Aside from asserting he would be voting yes in the referendum, he also argued against reverse-ageism ("many 20-year-olds are capable of taking on senior positions"), criticised the power of the Catholic church ("coming out of college I want nothing to do with it") and pronounced that his generation wants to see the breakdown of the old institutions. It’s the manifesto of a self-assured young man.
"I cringe when I read that now," says Meskill, who in 2015 won best radio production of the year in news and current affairs at the National Student Media Awards. "In hindsight, I should have lightened up a bit."
In 2016, Meskill started in RTÉ, working with news2day. "Before I joined news2day, I had worked in other radio stations in Dublin (In one instance he was asked to tone down his country accent) and saw myself as a news journalist, so going into children’s news was new to me. But it was a great learning experience.
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"For example, in recent days, news2day have been doing explainers on the Iran war. To write an explainer on that for an adult audience is difficult, but to write it from a primary school audience is even trickier. Today, if I have a complicated news story and I’m struggling for the top line, sometimes I think, ‘If I was on news2day, how would I script this?’ and that usually sorts it.
"news2day also sharpened my presenting style because I was quite wooden when I started." And rather than pigeonholing him, news2day primed Meskill for working as a reporter with Morning Ireland, as well as occasionally presenting This Week and European Parliament Report.
The summer of 2024 was memorable for Tommy Meskill. "I was appointed as the London correspondent, and seven weeks after that, Trish and I had our wedding in Leitrim. It was a chaotic time."
Starting as London correspondent two days before the UK General Election was especially nerve-shredding for the can-do broadcaster.
"It was the first time that I thought that I’d bitten off more than I could chew," he says. Initially, Meskill was helped by his RTÉ predecessor, Fiona Mitchell. Afterwards, he put in the legwork, racking up the miles and the experiences.
"I got to interview Keir Starmer twice, I got to shout questions at Donald Trump in a press conference when he visited Turnberry, and so much else too in that year and a half," he says. "It was also a very exciting time on the personal front; Trish and I were newlyweds in the Big City, and so we will always have a nostalgia for London."
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The Six One posting – one of the most coveted in the RTÉ newsroom – came out of the blue, one of the dominoes set in motion when Claire Byrne announced that she would be leaving RTÉ for Newstalk. David McCullagh moved from Six One to fill the Radio One morning slot, leaving an empty seat that many vied to fill. Meskill, who had never made any secret of his ambitions, threw his hat into the ring.
"I was about to go to the Old Bailey to cover a case when I got the call," he says. "I was in the apartment, Trish standing beside me. We had just sold our apartment in Dublin. In hindsight, maybe we would have hung back on selling, but these are good problems to have. And I have a very patient and understanding wife. I suppose Trish knew that the Six-One was the dream gig for me, and there was always the chance it might not happen, so when it did, we went for it."
Tommy and Trish are currently house-hunting, holidays temporarily on hold. He says that they would like to start a family at some stage if they are fortunate enough to do so.
For now, the Six One keeps him busy, and he’s on the road regularly, down to Clare or Trish’s home place in Longford. In the car, he listens to the news but also house music, an ambient alternative.
"My job has taught me not to be so black and white in my opinions," he says. "I try to keep an open mind because it can be foolish to form hard opinions too quickly. When I read back on that interview from 2015, I sometimes cringe. I now have a much different appreciation for how people live in this world. As a teenager you think you know much more than you do. I’d love to go back and tell my teenage self that things turned out OK because I did doubt myself back then, thinking that maybe I was being foolish pursuing my dream."
