‘The Irish card has definitely helped’

The title of his book says it was Four Years in the Cauldron, but Brian O’Donovan sees his tour of duty as RTÉ’s man in America as more of a white-knuckled ride on a rollercoaster.

The animated TV reporter became a near-permanent fixture on Irish screens during the tempestuous Trump years, explaining the latest pantomime utterances from the White House with his ever-spirited delivery that suited the presidential circus and ringmaster he had to cover.

The Cork man stepped in front of the camera in the United States in January 2018, taking the mic from Caitríona Perry in one of the most high-profile jobs in Irish journalism. His new memoir covers the final three of Trump’s four years in the White House and Joe Biden’s victory in the stormy 2020 presidential election. It was an action-packed, colourful time to be stateside.

“It was an amazing four years; it was an incredibly busy four years when I think professionally and journalistically of what happened,” says O’Donovan down a phone line from the US, where he is in the final months of his tenure as RTÉ Washington correspondent.

He lists off the news events that packed his time in the US: three years of Donald Trump and a devastating pandemic; the Black Lives Matter movement and protests following the police killing of Minnesota man George Floyd last year; the 2020 election and Joe Biden’s victory; the storming of the US Capitol in January; and, latterly, the calamitous US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“There have been enormous world-changing Reeling in the Years moments throughout my four years. I’m absolutely delighted and privileged to have been here for all of that,” he said.

O’Donovan’s biggest Reeling in the Years moment, he says, was a dramatic evening in October 2020 when Trump caught the Covid-19 virus and had to be airlifted from the White House to hospital. It was not just the news value of the event that stands out in his memory.

He was standing in front of the White House, preparing for a live report back to anchor Sharon Ní Bheoláin, when an aggressive police officer started screaming at him and cameraman Murray Pinczuk to move. The officer started on them just as he heard Ní Bheoláin in his ear telling audiences at home they were going live to in Washington.

When they could not move, the officer spun the camera around, panning the shot wildly to the right, all live on air.

“It looked…