Miriam O’Callaghan is well used to asking hard questions and covering real-life stories, but when it came to telling her own, it was never the right time.
Now that her eight children have grown up, Miriam is taking time for herself and has finally gotten around to putting pen to paper.
She’s penned an autobiography, Miriam: Life, Work, Everything, which will hit shelves on October 30, something the presenter admits is both ‘exciting and terrifying.’
Miriam O’Callaghan pictured this morning at the Bord Gais Theatre at the launch of the new season’s shows for RTE 1 and RTE 2. Pic: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin
Miriam’s book has been shortlisted at the 2025 An Post Irish Book Awards, and she chatted with EVOKE at the launch night about why it’s taken her so long to write her story.
‘I got the contract 20 years ago from Penguin Random House, and I decided I wouldn’t write it because I went on to have another child, and then I thought, oh, I have a shared life. How can I make it fair and not upset everyone, and I have eight children, and my mum’s still alive? So I decided not to write it, but then Patricia Deey of Penguin Random House didn’t give up on me,’ Miriam said.
Miriam O’Callaghan’s memoir ‘Miriam: Life, Work, Everything’. Pic: Penguin Books Ireland
She continued: ‘I think part of the reason I took so long to write it is that I wanted it to be honest. I think there’ll be a lot in it that people don’t know.
‘I interview people a lot, and I ask them to open up to me. So there’s no way I was writing it unless it was the truth, the unvarnished account of my life.’
With writing a book can come pain as it delves into the past, and like so many others, Miriam has had her fair share of heartache.
1995 was a particularly tough year as Miriam lost her sister to cancer and then eight weeks later, her father suddenly passed. 1995 was also the year her marriage broke down.
Miriam O’Callaghan soaks up the sun on family holiday to Portugal./Pic: Instagram
Showing immense strength, Miriam told EVOKE that ‘it was just one of those years.’
Happy times are also plenty in her life, and when asked about her eight children, Miriam said: ‘When I actually read it about me, I go, “is she mad?”‘
Laughing, she added that epidurals were the key to her eight labours and that through it all, she ‘won the lotto eight times.’
