Ralph McLean is a

Northern Irish Northern Irish people is a demonym for all people born in Northern Ireland or people who are entitled to reside in Northern Ireland without any restriction on their period of residence. Most Northern Irish people either identify as Northern ...

TV presenter, radio DJ, arts commentator, radio producer and newspaper columnist.

Television

McLean presents entertainment TV shows such as The Blackstaff Sessions, First Stop, 11th Hour and Belfast Festival At Queens. He has presented The

World Pipe Band Championships The World Pipe Band Championships is a pipe band competition held in Glasgow, Scotland. The World Pipe Band Championships as we currently know them have been staged since 1947 although the Grade 1 Pipe Band Competition winners at the annual Cowal ...

for

BBC Northern Ireland BBC Northern Ireland ( ga, BBC Thuaisceart Éireann; Ulster-Scots: ''BBC Norlin Airlan'') is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Northern Ireland. It is widely available across both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ire ...

for several years and worked on numerous shows and specials such as Would You Pass The 11+ and The Big Bumper Science Quiz and also presented several productions for

BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002

. He has interviewed celebrities such as

Dustin Hoffman Dustin Lee Hoffman (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker. As one of the key actors in the formation of New Hollywood, Hoffman is known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and emotionally vulnerable characters. He is th ...

Harrison Ford Harrison Ford (born July 13, 1942) is an American actor. His films have grossed more than $5.4billion in North America and more than $9.3billion worldwide, making him the seventh-highest-grossing actor in North America. He is the recipient o ...

Tommy Lee Jones Tommy Lee Jones (born September 15, 1946) is an American actor and film director. He has received four Academy Award nominations, winning Best Supporting Actor for his performance as U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard in the 1993 thriller film '' The ...

Mick Jagger Sir Michael Philip Jagger (born 26 July 1943) is an English singer and songwriter who has achieved international fame as the lead vocalist and one of the founder members of the rock band the Rolling Stones. His ongoing songwriting partnershi ...

Dolly Parton Dolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, actress, philanthropist, and businesswoman, known primarily for her work in country music. After achieving success as a songwriter for others, Parton made her album d ...

and

Angelina Jolie Angelina Jolie (; born Angelina Jolie Voight; June 4, 1975) is an American actress, filmmaker, humanitarian and former Special Envoy to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award ...

Radio

McLean presents ''The Ralph McLean Show'' from Tuesday to Thursday between 8:00 and 10pm, playing music from

classic rock Classic rock is a US radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid 1990s, primar ...

soul In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being". Etymology The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...

to country and

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

He has presented his own two-hour roots show on Friday nights for many years on

BBC Radio Ulster BBC Radio Ulster ( ga, BBC Raidió Uladh) is a Northern Irish radio station owned and operated by BBC Northern Ireland, a division of the BBC. It was established on New Year's Day 1975, replacing what had been an opt-out of BBC Radio 4. It is ...

, interviewing many of the biggest names in country music such as

Emmylou Harris Emmylou Harris (born April 2, 1947) is an American singer, songwriter and musician. She has released dozens of albums and singles over the course of her career and has won 14 Grammys, the Polar Music Prize, and numerous other honors, including ...

and

Nanci Griffith Nanci Caroline Griffith (July 6, 1953 – August 13, 2021) was an American singer, guitarist, and songwriter. She appeared many times on the PBS music program ''Austin City Limits'' starting in 1985 (season 10). In 1994 she won a Grammy Award fo ...

. He has also produced and presented many shows like Classic Irish Albums and produced numerous acclaimed documentary series such as The

Sinéad O'Connor Shuhada Sadaqat (born Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor on 8 December 1966; ) is an Irish singer-songwriter. Her debut album, ''The Lion and the Cobra'', was released in 1987 and charted internationally. Her second album, ''I Do Not Want What ...

Story, The

Tammy Wynette Tammy Wynette (born Virginia Wynette Pugh; May 5, 1942 – April 6, 1998) was an American country music artist, as well as an actress and author. She is considered among the genre's most influential and successful artists. Along with Loretta Ly ...

Story and The

Loretta Lynn Loretta Lynn (; April 14, 1932 – October 4, 2022) was an American country music singer and songwriter. In a career spanning six decades, Lynn released multiple gold albums. She had numerous hits such as " You Ain't Woman Enough (To Take My M ...

Story for

BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 15 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the station broadcasts a wide range of content. ...

. In 2007 McLean won Specialist Music Broadcaster Of The Year in the PPI Awards.BBC – Radio Ulster – Programmes
Bbc.co.uk

Newspaper work

McLean writes a popular weekly country music column for The '' Sunday Life'' and a cult movies page for ''

The Irish News ''The Irish News'' is a Compact (newspaper), compact daily newspaper based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is Northern Ireland's largest selling morning newspaper and is available throughout Ireland. It is broadly Irish nationalist in its view ...

'' every Friday.

Selected appearances

Television

*The Blackstaff Sessions -

BBC Two Northern Ireland BBC Two Northern Ireland ( ga, BBC Thuaisceart Éireann a Dó) is the Northern Irish variation of BBC Two operated by BBC Northern Ireland. It is broadcast via digital terrestrial transmitters and from the SES Astra 2E satellite (transponder 48 ...

(three series of the live music TV show) *Festival Nights - BBC Two Northern Ireland (four series of three times weekly panel review show for Belfast Festival) *Four Series Of First Stop - BBC One Northern Ireland (Weekly Prime Time Entertainment show co -presented with

Christine Bleakley Christine Louise Lampard (''née'' Bleakley, born 2 February 1979) is a Northern Irish broadcaster. She has presented various television programmes with Adrian Chiles, such as ''The One Show'' (2007–2010) and '' Daybreak'' (2010–11), while w ...

) *Opening Night Of Belfast Festival At Queens 2004 - BBC Four *Chieftains In Concert - BBC Four *Three Series of 11th Hour -

BBC Choice BBC Choice was a British digital television channel which was owned by the BBC and was launched on 23 September 1998. It was the first British TV channel to broadcast exclusively in digital format, as well as the BBC's second non-analogue-terres ...

(three times weekly entertainment show) *Burns And Beyond -

BBC One Northern Ireland BBC One Northern Ireland is a Northern Irish television channel based on the UK-wide BBC One, owned and operated by BBC Northern Ireland. The service is broadcast from Broadcasting House in Belfast. In the rest of the UK, BBC One Northern Irelan ...

(Burns Night Ulster Scots Special) *Burns Night Concert - BBC One Northern Ireland 2006 *World Pipe Bands Championships/All Ireland Finals - BBC Two Northern Ireland * Children in Need 2001–Present -

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, p ...

Radio

*The Ralph McLean Show 2006–Present

*McLeans Country 1999–present

*Classic Irish Albums 2006

*The Afternoon Show

2006 *The Vinyl Countdown

2003

Television

Radio

Newspaper work

Selected appearances

Television

Radio

References

External links