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25th Aug 2012

Video: As Charlie Bird prepares to depart RTE, we remember his finest moment

Nearly 40 years after joining the station, the unmistakeable Charlie Bird is set to fly the RTE coop. Here’s our favourite Charlie moment. Have you ever seen him look so happy?

Conor Heneghan

Nearly 40 years after joining the station, the unmistakeable Charlie Bird is set to fly the RTE coop. Here’s our favourite Charlie moment. Have you ever seen him look so happy?

For viewers of a certain age, news and current affairs on RTE won’t be the same anymore after it was revealed in today’s Irish Independent that the inimitable (even though a few make a good fist of a Charlie impersonation) Charlie Bird is set to accept RTE’s early retirement scheme at the age of 62, nearly four decades after joining the station as a cub reporter in the 1970s.

When some of the biggest stories from Ireland and beyond broke over the years, Charlie was there.

He reported heavily on the peace process and incidents involving the Provisional IRA, he helped break the story about tax evasion in National Irish Bank with George Lee in the late ’90s, he was in Syria for the release of Brian Keenan and he copped a bit of a hiding after being accused of being an ‘orange bastard’ when reporting on the infamous Dublin riots in 2006.

His stint as the Washington correspondent didn’t go too well and boy did he like to complain about it but when his ill-fated spell Stateside came to an end, we welcomed him back and have often seen the lighter side of the Dubliner in recent years.

Charlie has been a fixture on RTE for so long that he’s had many memorable moments, but to our eyes at least, there have been none more memorable than when he got to play with seals during the Charlie Bird Explores series in the middle of the last decade (see video above… and watch out for his little yelp of joy around the 1:15 mark). Have you ever seen him look so happy.

Yeah, he could be a bit annoying and he sure liked the sound of his own voice at times, but we’ll miss him all the same.

Fare thee well Charlie, thanks for the memories.

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