Mary Kennedy

An excellent MC and Host, Mary Kennedy ensures your event is enhanced with a professional approach.

One of Ireland’s most popular broadcasters, Mary Kennedy began her RTE career as a continuity announcer. She soon became a Newscaster and came to national prominence presenting the Eurovision Song Contest in 1995.

Since then, Mary has presented many programmes including a successful six year run of Open House, People of the Year, Up for the Match, Nationwide and RTE’s Christmas Carols.

Mary regularly works as a commentator on high profile RTE television events such as the funeral of Mother Teresa, the marriage of Prince William, the visit of Queen Elizabeth, and State funerals. She provided the commentary for the funeral of Gay Byrne.

Following her retirement from Nationwide at the end of 2019, Mary continues to present the RTE Christmas Carols programme and to commentate on state occasions.

Mary has also appeared regularly as a guest on shows including The Late Late Show, Tubridy Tonight, Today and has published five books – Paper Tigers (2002), Lines I Love (2007) and Lines for Living (2011), What Matters, Reflections on Important Things in Life, (2015) and Home Thoughts from the Heart, (2018).

In 2020 Mary thoroughly enjoyed taking part in Dancing With The Stars, presented a series for TG4 called Guaranteed Irish, and was asked by singer/songwriter, Don Mescall to record a charity single, “Life is a Beautiful Dance.” She writes a monthly column for two magazines, Ireland’s Own and The West Cork Opinion and has presented a series of podcasts for Senior Times magazine, interviewing Irish women writers.

Mary works regularly as MC, presenter and interviewer at corporate events and at webinars. She speaks fluent French and Irish. She hosted the launch of The Gathering in 2013 for the Irish Government, international conferences for Irish Distillers and the ESB, and Entente Florale for the International Tidy Towns Committee.

Mary has been extensively involved in fund raising for GOAL, Self Help and To Children with Love and has travelled to Russia, India, Malawi, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sri Lanka to raise awareness and money. She is patron of Family Carers Ireland.