''The Right Hook'' was a late afternoon to early evening talk programme broadcast on the

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

-based national

Newstalk Newstalk (formerly NewsTalk 106) is a national independent radio station in Ireland. It is operated by News 106 Limited, a subsidiary of Bauer Media Audio Ireland, and broadcasts under a sound broadcasting contract with the Broadcasting Autho ...

commercial radio station, and hosted by

George Hook George Hook (born 19 May 1941) is an Irish people, Irish Broadcasting, broadcaster, journalist and rugby union pundit. He formerly hosted ''The Right Hook'' and ''High Noon'' on the Irish radio station Newstalk. He had a career as a rugby unio ...

. It was the first radio show in Ireland to broadcast the show entirely live via web cam on the internet.

Schedule

Monday - Friday 16.30 - 19.00

Features

As well as featuring news and current affairs interviews and analysis, a number of regular segments featured including technology with Jessica Kelly and Jonathan McCrae, travel with Fionn Davenport, movies with Philip Molloy and sport, which featured regular contributions from well-known Irish sport pundits such as

Johnny Giles Michael John Giles (born 6 November 1940) is an Irish former association football player and manager best remembered for his time as a midfielder with Leeds United in the 1960s and 1970s. After retiring from management in 1985, Giles served as t ...

, Liam Griffin and

Jim Glennon James Glennon (born 7 July 1953) is an Irish former Fianna Fáil politician and former Irish International rugby player. He was a Teachta Dála for the Dublin North constituency from 2002 to 2007. Glennon was born in Skerries, County Dublin i ...

. On Mondays at 5.30, the outspoken right-wing talk show host Michael Graham linked up live from Boston. Every Friday George was joined by Newstalk's political editor Shane Coleman and sports commentator Dave McIntyre for the duration of the show.

History

''The Right Hook'' was presented from the start of

in 2002 by the same presenter until his retirement. Garrett Harte was the original producer, and is credited by Hook on his autobiography ''Time Added On'' with moulding him into the presenter he is today. Harte was later appointed Newstalk's station editor and the show was subsequently produced by Mark Simpson. The show was well known for Hook's opinionated style of broadcasting and regularly traveled around Ireland for on-location broadcasts. Throughout the course of the 2008 US Presidential Election Campaign, Hook broadcast from key locations in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

such as New York for

Super Tuesday Super Tuesday is the United States presidential primary election day in February or March when the greatest number of U.S. states hold primary elections and caucuses. Approximately one-third of all delegates to the presidential nominating co ...

, Denver for the

2008 Democratic National Convention The 2008 Democratic National Convention was a quadrennial presidential nominating convention of the Democratic Party where it adopted its national platform and officially nominated its candidates for president and vice president. The conventi ...

and Washington D.C. for both the 2008 election and the inauguration of Barack Obama as 44th President of the United States in January 2009. The show is well known for interviewing the famous American celebrity Tom Cruise while he was doing a

press junket Film promotion is the practice of promotion specifically in the film industry, and usually occurs in coordination with the process of film distribution. Sometimes called the press junket or film junket, film promotion generally includes press rele ...

in Europe for Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol. During campaigning ahead of the

2011 Irish presidential election The 2011 Irish presidential election was the thirteenth presidential election to be held in Ireland, and was contested by a record seven candidates. It was held on Thursday, 27 October 2011. The election was held to elect a successor to Mary ...

Fine Gael Fine Gael (, ; English: "Family (or Tribe) of the Irish") is a liberal-conservative and Christian-democratic political party in Ireland. Fine Gael is currently the third-largest party in the Republic of Ireland in terms of members of Dáil � ...

candidate

Gay Mitchell Gabriel Alexander Mitchell (born 30 December 1951) is an Irish former Fine Gael politician who served as Minister of State for European Affairs from 1994 to 1997 and Lord Mayor of Dublin from 1992 to 1993. He served as a Member of the European ...

made a joke about suicide on while appearing on ''The Right Hook''. He promised to "jump off

O'Connell Bridge O'Connell Bridge () is a road bridge spanning the River Liffey in Dublin, Ireland, which joins O'Connell Street to D'Olier Street, Westmoreland Street and the south quays. History The original bridge (named ''Carlisle Bridge'' for the then ...

" if he was asked to smile. Founding Secretary of the Irish Association of Suicidology Dr John Connolly described Mitchell's comment as "unfortunate".

References

External links

''The Right Hook''
at

{{DEFAULTSORT:Right Hook, The Irish talk radio shows Newstalk programmes 2002 radio programme debuts News radio programs 2002 establishments in Ireland