Born April 24th, 1952
Died October 31st, 2024
David Davin-Power was one of the best known faces on television and a trusted commentator on RTÉ during the golden age of public service broadcasting. He reported on some of the momentous events in modern Irish history and explained them in an incisive and impartial manner to the viewing public.
During a long and varied career he was – from 1984 – the first co-presenter of the groundbreaking Morning Ireland programme in RTÉ, along with David Hanly, and went on to be the station’s Northern Editor during the peace process and political correspondent from 2001 to 2017.
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While he was noted for his impartiality, Davin-Power didn’t simply recite the facts of the big events he covered but provided concise explanation and context delivered with wit and brio. His calm demeanour and precise use of language were the hallmarks of his broadcasting style.
In private he was great company and a wonderful raconteur who appreciated the absurdities of life. David McCullagh, his long-time colleague on the RTÉ political team, summed up the feelings of those who worked with him over the years. “The most erudite, witty colleague, always great fun and wonderful company. Gone far too soon.”
David Davin-Power, or DDP as he was known to media colleagues, was born in 1952. His father, Maurice, was a GP who earned a reputation for the time and attention he gave to poorer patients. He was also a playwright, drawing on his professional experience in his work. He won the OZ Whitehead award for one-act plays twice, wrote episodes of the first RTÉ soap Tolka Row in the 1960s and was drama critic for the Irish Medical Times.
The family lived on the South Circular Road in Dublin and David attended the Jesuit-run Gonzaga College in nearby Ranelagh. On leaving school he enrolled as a pre-med student in UCD but decided after a year that medicine was not for him. His younger sister Mary continued the family medical tradition and became a GP.
David switched from medicine to history and politics in UCD and became a well-known figure in the college during the early years of the Belfield campus. After graduation he began his career in journalism with the Irish Medical Times, and in 1976 he moved to the Irish Press as a subeditor, where one of his colleagues was the writer David Hanly.
The two of them moved to RTÉ in the late 1970s and, after cutting their teeth in the newsroom, they were appointed as the first presenters of Morning Ireland, which went on air in November 1984. The programme gave a new dimension to RTÉ’s news coverage and quickly developed a wide listenership, making household names of its two presenters.
When Ireland’s first commercial broadcaster, Century Radio, was established in 1989 Davin-Power was approached to head up its news operation. After serious consideration he decided to take the plunge and took charge of the news division at the station. It was an ill-fated move, as Century closed after a little more than two years due to financial difficulties.
Davin-Power was quickly snapped up by the Evening Press, where he was appointed political correspondent. He returned to his old haunt on Burgh Quay, intending to make his future as a newspaper journalist but faced an immediate dilemma when RTÉ offered him the job of Northern Correspondent. After agonising over the matter he decided that broadcasting was where his future lay, and he left the Evening Press after less than three weeks. He would later tell friends that his meeting with the paper’s highly respected editor, Sean Ward, to inform him of the decision was one of the most difficult and embarrassing encounters in his professional life. In the Press newsroom he was immediately dubbed “David Gone-in-an-hour.”
As Northern editor of RTÉ during the 1990s he had a ringside seat at the evolving peace process and kept the Irish public up to date with the succession of events that ultimately led to the Belfast Agreement. He developed contacts right across the sectarian divide in Northern Ireland and was trusted by politicians of all parties for his fair minded commentary.
[ Bertie Ahern pays tribute to late broadcaster David Davin-PowerOpens in new window ]
During the 1980s he had to contend with a serious trauma in his personal life when his first marriage ended and he had to take care of his three children. At his funeral Mass his eldest son Nick paid tribute to the way his father had juggled a demanding work schedule with devoting himself to the welfare of his children.
In 2001 he returned to Dublin as RTÉ’s political correspondent and he brought his skills as a knowledgeable and impartial commentator to the station’s coverage of Irish politics. He already knew all the main players before he arrived in Leinster House and was deeply respected by all sides of the political world.
His wonderful grasp of the English language sometimes had viewers, and colleagues, reaching for the dictionary. In one television news bulletin he described the late Brian Lenihan’s attitude during the financial crisis as “Panglossian”. That relatively obscure word could not have been bettered in the circumstances.
As well as his use of language, television viewers were intrigued by his vigorous curly hair. There was unfounded speculation that it was not his own and occasionally passers-by would tug at it to check as he stood in Merrion Street waiting to do a broadcast. He once received a neatly typed letter with the message: “Have you no family or friends who would tell you that the wig you are wearing is terrible? It is so obvious it is funny. Why don’t you buy a new one or just be bald?” Davin-Power was so amused he had the letter framed and it hung in the downstairs bathroom at his Dublin home.
That home was the venue for an annual Christmas party given by David and his second wife Dearbhla, whom he married in 2001. There, journalists, politicians and judges mingled with family friends and relatives. Near-neighbours Bertie Ahern and Richard Bruton were regulars at the event, to which an invitation was much coveted.
In 2017 when he reached the age of 65 David was forced into retirement by RTÉ’s rigid rules. It was something he deeply resented as he felt he still had a lot to contribute to journalism. In recent years he was a frequent contributor to Newstalk, and in the past year began a regular political column in the Sunday Independent in which his insight and sparkling prose began to win a wide audience.
He was diagnosed early in the year with cancer of the thyroid. While the treatment appeared initially to work, by late summer it was evident the cancer had spread and he died on the last day of October.
He was married twice, first to artist Christine Bowen, with whom he had three children, Nick, Caroline and Julia, and, subsequently to Dearbhla Collins, a renowned musician with whom he had two children, Ben and Emily. He is also survived by his sister Mary.