Ink in the blood

You’d never think that just five minutes after the credits roll, Alison Comyn is zooming through the port tunnel and rocking up the M1 blaring heavy metal.

We’re talking Black Sabbath, Pearl Jam and Sound Garden.

“I’ve got this drive home every evening and I just have to clear my head as well, so I’ll blast the radio and do some really bad singing on the motorway.”

Thus, Alison Comyn proves that to be classy, you don’t have to compromise on good craic, because if there’s one thing that’s certain, while Alison Comyn is good craic, she is first and foremost a class act – and if she’s not, then she’s one hell of an actress. She is polite, gracious and extremely obliging and she washed Irish Country Living’s teacup post-interview.

Alison is very professional and very composed and she’s right at home in the bright, shiny new surroundings of UTV Ireland, where she delivers the news in a studio in which she is completely on her own, with robotic cameras following her every move.

Outside, the news team is beavering away, but in a calm and collected fashion – the only exception being when a cameraman trips over his tripod, reporter in tow, as they tear out the door for a Germany-bound flight on the day of the Germanwings plane crash.

In the blood

Journalism is the Comyn family trade.

“There are stupid clichés of once you’ve ink in the blood and everything like that, but there must be something to it because my uncle John is a very prominent journalist, and both my brothers are writers and broadcasters,” Alison says.

Alison did a “triple threat” course in Ballyfermot (covering radio, television and print) and got a fantastic opportunity in her last year in college to take up a television position in London with L!VE TV and Janet Street-Porter. She later went on to work for the Mirror group and then got another big break when she was the first journalist at the scene of the 1996 IRA Canary Wharf bombing because she was living in Canary Wharf at the time. She reported live from the spot for RTÉ and BBC and soon after was offered a job with BBC Northern Ireland.

While Alison’s work is serious, she’s seen some funny scenes over the years, not least during her time in Sky News Ireland.

She recalls one incident: “I was outside Mountjoy doing a live report straight into the studio, and the camera man was just about to be knocked down by a prison truck which was reversing straight at him, and he couldn’t see it. I’m talking and trying to be really professional down the camera and I was trying to pull his trouser leg and trying to move him away and eventually – I think it was Grainne Seoige who was presenting at the time – she said: ‘Are you okay?’ And I said: ‘Yes, fine.’ And we cut the report and I was like: ‘Get the hell out of the way.’”

Job change

Alison left this particular role after just seven months, having taken it on when her youngest child, Luke, was just six weeks old and her daughter Holly was just a year and a half. She went to work for the Drogheda Independent while still keeping a “little foot in the television and the radio” with punditry. Now her children are that little bit older and she’s at the top of the Irish media game, is this exactly how she planned it?

“I kept an open mind and I just dropped UTV Ireland an email when it was announced and I quite honestly said this is the first genuine opportunity that I’m interested in in Ireland in the last couple of years.”

When Irish Country Living asks if it was scary sending that original email, we’re shot down – in a major way: “Not at all. For goodness sake you grab these things. You just go – nothing ventured, nothing gained, and you hope something happens.

“I didn’t just walk straight into it. I had a hell of a lot to prove because I’m not a well-known face or a well-known name and, of course, every other well-known face and well-known name was being put forward for it.”

She says her experience in the Drogheda Independent has helped hugely.

“There used to be a time, particularly when I was with the BBC, where you had to be an expert in something – you had to have your thing. So I didn’t have a thing. I was a journalist – we wrote about everything.

“After eight years (in a regional newspaper) where you have a huge amount of experience, you realise that for the likes of an anchor role you need politics, you need economics, you need local government, you need national government, and all those things stand to you.”

Alison is keen to bring regional news to the national airwaves.

“The one joy for me here is how much we’re celebrating the regions and how much we’re out into the regions – there’s just millions of topics that should be investigated and should be reported.

“I’m not saying we’re the first people to base correspondents there, but I think we’re the first to really utilise them properly and not just wait for a national story to happen.”

Alison is based in Drogheda and she can be often spotted on the local beaches, taking her dogs for a walk.

“That is my mindful zone,” she says. She’s still busy at home, given that Holly is 11 and Luke is 10, but she says her husband Malachy has been fantastic, “taking over a certain role that I had looked after for the last couple of years”.

Double-jobbing, however, or quadruple-jobbing, as is often the case, helps her manage her full plate.

When she’s getting her mindfulness on the beach, she also “gets the dogs walked”.

“I can get a bit of fresh air and exercise and I can clear my head at the same time, maybe listen to a bit of new music. I have complete multi-tasking syndrome.”

Rugby

Music is one passion of Alison’s but she also says she’s a “frustrated rugby pundit”.

“I just love the game. Everybody has a sport that they love and I just love it – and you know rugby players aren’t bad to look at.”

Does she have a particular grá for any one of them?

UTV Ireland’s head of communications, Neal Cummins, who’s sitting in on this interview interjects: “I know exactly who it is!”

Alison roars laughing. “Do I go here Neal, do I go here?”

“Well it could be your shot at getting in there,” he retorts.

She roars laughing again.

“I don’t know. Well, Rob Kearney’s a Louth man, and Dave, you know, those brown eyes. Tommy Bowe and then Alan Quinlan of course ... but look, it’s a super game and to have the double Six Nations, honestly – and I love women’s rugby as well.

“I’ve been a great supporter of Grace Davitt and Vicky McGinn who are both players from Boyne – that’s my team in Drogheda and I know Niamh Briggs quite well. I’m just amazingly proud of them.”

We’re sure the Irish women’s rugby team are delighted to have Alison Comyn in their corner and the enthusiasm Alison displays when talking about them and about her other passions is just one of her many attractive qualities.

They say how people treat you is their karma and as Irish Country Living leaves UTV Ireland’s slick Docklands premises to allow Alison to prepare for the 6.30pm news, we conclude it’s not just her absolute competence, but her positive attitude, her zeal for life and the good karma she has accrued over the years that is the very key to her success.