BIOGRAPHY
Donal MacIntyre was born in Dublin in 1966. He and his twin brother are among five children of an Irish playwright and American-born teacher . He grew up in Ireland and the USA and was active in sport, playing rugby and representing his Ireland in canoeing at the World Championships. Donal’s highest world ranking was 11th. He raced around the globe from Australia to Portugal and won many Irish and British titles at various levels. He was also a member of two Irish Olympic training squads but failed to make the games because – in his own words – ‘I wasn’t fast enough.- but not by much ! ‘ He is an avid mountain climber and an occasional but inept boxer.
He studied in Dublin and London, later completing a Masters degree in Communication Policy at City University.
Initially employed in print media, he worked as a news reporter for The Sunday Tribune and later with The Irish Press in Dublin. He worked in finance journalism, sports and news and but did his first investigations into the Law Society there which were faced with allegations of restrictive practises. He has written for The Guardian, The Mail and New Statesman among many other publications.
His first work in television was for the award winning BBC investigative sports strand, On-The-Line in 1993 . At one stage, for this programme he went undercover as an Adventure Sports Instructor to expose the lack of employment standards in the industry. This was in the wake of the Lyme Regis canoeing disaster in which four people drowned. His canoeing experience got him his first work undercover.
Then, again using undercover tactics he investigated cruelty in greyhound racing in Ireland, Spain, the UK and the US. . For this programme he won awards in both Ireland and the U.S.A. and seven people were convicted of animal cruelty. He then moved from the BBC to ITV’s BAFTA winning World in Action investigative programme.Donal was to win two Royal Television Society Award for a film on drug dealing by night-club bouncers.
For this programme he spent 11 months undercover as a bouncer in Nottingham and received three death threats after the programme was broadcast.
His profile led him to being poached by the BBC to front a major undercover series . The series would be broadcast around the world and made headlines everywhere it was broadcast. ` MacIntyre Undercover ` was screened in November 1999 and was the culmination of almost two years research by MacIntyre and his BBC team. The series covered organised football violence, the fashion industry, abuse within care homes and Nigerian con men.
The programme’s greatest triumph was when after a month long trial, two dangerous Chelsea football hooligans that had been secretly filmed by the programme, were convicted of conspiracy to commit violent disorder and affray . They were sentenced to seven and six years respectively, in November 2000, and were banned from attending football matches for 10 years. Three other Football Hooligans were also convicted in a seperate trial as a result of the programme.
He wrote an on-the-hoof diary account of his journey as one man leading four lives, which was published by BBC, and sold 80,000 copies. The book tells of the fatigue he suffered often interchanging roles several times in the same day. As a result of death threats from the series on football he had to stay in a safe-house and live with bodyguards while continuing to work for the BBC.
A Reuters Fellowship (Reuters Fellowship) would lead to two terms at Oxford University and he also spent time in the U.S. In June 2001, he presented a BAFTA nominated documentary on the Oklahoma bomber, Timothy McVeigh. `MacIntyre Investigates` looked at street crime, the heroin trade in the Golden Triangle and the vice trade.
Police criticism of his care programme which had changed Government policy led to legal and a public service celebrity death match between the BBC and the Kent Police. Mac Intyre sued the Police for libel and won an unprecedented legal victory which consolidated his reputation for hard hitting and sturdy investigative journalism.
Mac Intyre had won a major victory for the learning disabled community and moved the Police to review the way they investigate abuse against the vunerable. His victory against the Kent Force was applauded internationaly and Mac Intyre gave his five figure libel winnings in the £750,000 action to three charities in the sector.
While preparing for a new series in 2002 of `Mac Intyre Investigates` for BBC 1 Mac Intyre was enlisted to put his sporting accolades to the test when he presented the landmark series : Wild Weather, with the BBC science department. He became a mainstream presenter confirming his broad appeal. It was broadcast in the USA and fifty other countries. The series was nominated for a BAFTA. The DVD of the series was one of BBC’s best selling products of the year .
His further investigations into Street crime, sex slaves and the illegal trade in wild animals revealed remarkable insights and put Mac Intyre into considerable danger. His output demonstrated his journalistic range and diversity. His undercover shows made his name but a number of open access traditional documentaries on the subject of foundlings and on children who abuse their parents showed a deftness and sensitivity that belied his hardman image. A further personal film about the death of the explorer and friend Sir Peter Blake added weight to this.
Mac Intyre lectures around the world bringing to large audiences of students and journalists his unique brand of committment journalism. From the Oxford Union to Belgrade Seminars – Mac Intyre has brought his brand of journalism into the open forum. His BBC and Five output has sold to over 70 countries worldwide.In January 2003 Mac Intyre joined FIVE in a high profile move. He continued to work on BBC projects while developing films and strands for FIVE.
His first project for FIVE on credit card fraud as part of the ` Mac Intyre UK Undercover` strand got a record audience .His subsequent investigations for the strand involved abuse in elderly and learning disabled care homes were acclaimed and his new `Mac Intyre’s Millions ` strand was praised for its exposes on the trade in endangered animals, the trade in stolen organs and trade in arms in Eastern Europe. Convictions in a UN court in Kosovo followed as a result of the investigation.
Mac Intyre continues to develop projects for FIVE and other broadcasters . His gangster strand `mac
Intyre’s Underworld` was a critical and rating winner scoring up to 21% audience share. It has recently been nominated for a prestigious `Gierson Award`.
As a reporter and athlete, director and campaigner Mac Intyre has always pushed the boundaries. Unable to go undercover in the UK himself in a recent expose on care homes, Mac Intyre employed his brother, Tadhg, an international athlete, and psychologist to go undercover. Together they made a formidable team and produced one of the most thought provoking and powerful doumentaries of 2003.
Even while at Five, the legacy of his work at the BBC continued. He was one of the architects of the `Secret Policeman` – the famous documentary exposing racism at a Police training school. It originated from an attempt Mac Intyre led during his time at `World In Action` to expose racism among the Police following the Rodney King beating story in LA in 1996. After 6 years and attempts by three BBC journalists to get accepted by the Greater Manchester Police, Mark Daly ultimatly did and reported a landmark documentary. The programme was originally listed as a `Mac Intyre Investigates` but Mac Intyre handed the torch over to the journalist going undercover.
His work as a director and producer continues to surprise – who else could tackle Mother Teresa, the Underworld or footballs hooligans, and charm the Insect Tribe in his WImbledon home all for distiinctive broadcasting. Just as his reporting is distinctive, it is striking that his directing debut, ` A Very British Gangster` has been selected for competition in the prestigious Sundance film festival – a rare achievement for the first time director. Its widely acclaimed appearance there was followed up with numerous interantional awards as a director after thousands viewed the film in cinemas in France, Spain and the UK.
Evev his anti-smoking ads have created controversy even before they were broadcast: with startling timing Mac Intyre was hunting down pollonium, a component of cigarette smoke, long before it enter the popular vocab; the death of the Russian dissident by Pollonium made the Government nervous and they banned one of 6 ads in his campaign. Nonetheless, it garnered the campaign publicity across the world and got the message out there.
In 2007 when he presented a antropology travel series living with tribes around the world including the Insect Tribe of Papua New Guinea and the Sea Gypsies of Borneo in the `Edge of Existence` for Five and Discovery. He went on to invite the Insect Tribe to his London for a charming and sensitive return visit in Return of the Tribe. His harder edge was apparent in another series of `MacIntyre’s Underworld` and a new live crime series ` Street Crime Live` which saw MacIntyre have to endure abuse and bricks live while broadcasting to the nation, On the Crime theme he has presented ‘Crime Capitals” for TV3 and Bravo and presented Knife Crime Live for Sky One.
Mac Intyre is currently an Ambassador for MENCAP, the learning disability charity and also a advocate for the ` Action Against Elder Abuse ` charity.He is in training to swim the English Channel for MENCAP later this year. He is currently the scam buster for ITV’s This Morning Programme and presents his own investigative strand on BBC Radio Five Live.
