Dara Ó Briain ( , ; born 4 February 1972) is an Irish comedian and television presenter based in the United Kingdom. He is noted for performing stand-up comedy shows all over the world and for hosting topical panel shows such as Mock the Week, The Panel, and The Apprentice: You're Fired!. In 2009, the Irish Independent described Ó Briain as "Terry Wogan's heir apparent as Britain's 'favourite Irishman.
In 2012, he was nominated for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Entertainment Performance for his work on Mock the Week.
He has also been a newspaper columnist and written books for both adults and children. His first children's book, Beyond the Sky, was nominated for a Blue Peter Book Award in 2017.
Early life Ó Briain was born on 4 February 1972 in Bray, County Wicklow, and adopted into what he described as "a stable home" where he enjoyed a happy childhood, raised as an only child by his "supportive" parents.
He attended Coláiste Eoin secondary school, a Gaelcholáiste (Irish-speaking medium school) on Dublin's southside. He attended University College Dublin (UCD), where he studied mathematics and theoretical physics. In 2008, he remarked: "I haven't written it into my act, but it occasionally comes through. I could come on with a chalkboard and say: 'Now you're all going to pay attention.
While a student at UCD, he was both the auditor (chairperson) of the Literary and Historical Society (the university's oldest debating society) and the co-founder and co-editor of The University Observer college newspaper.
In 1994, he won the Irish Times National Debating Championship and The Irish Times/Gael Linn National Irish language debating championship; he is a fluent Irish speaker, and speaks to his father only in that language. His granny was a teenage member of the Irish Republican Army (1919–1922), in the war of independence.
He played both Gaelic football and hurling for Bray Emmets and hurling for the Wicklow County minor team.
After university After graduating in 1994, Ó Briain began working at RTÉ as a children's TV presenter. At this time, he also began performing his first stand-up gigs on the Irish comedy circuit. He admitted, "I did the trip from Dublin to Donegal to play to six people; then I turned round and drove home again. I did about three or four years playing to a lot of bad rooms, but learning as I went. It's not bad when someone gives you £40 for standing up and telling jokes. I remember thinking: 'This is the life. Ó Briain spent three years as a presenter on the bilingual (Irish and English) children's programme Echo Island but came to prominence as a team captain on the topical panel show Don't Feed the Gondolas (1998–2000) hosted by Seán Moncrieff. Ó Briain also hosted RTÉ family entertainment gameshow It's a Family Affair.
Stand-up comedy
Ó Briain's stand-up international career took off around this time as he began to tour heavily, performing across Europe, Asia, Australia and North America, with gigs in Dubai, Paris, Adelaide, Shanghai and New York City. He was a regular at the Kilkenny Cat Laughs and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, as well as making one notable appearance at the Just For Laughs festival in Montreal in 2002, where he was offered a prestigious gala show because of his performances at the Irish showcase. Around this time, Ó Briain presented the weekend game show It's a Family Affair on RTÉ Television. It was the first time he worked with former Channel 4 commissioning editor Séamus Cassidy. They later set up the production company Happy Endings Productions, and together they produced (and Ó Briain presented) the chat show Buried Alive (2003) and most famously in Ireland The Panel (2003–2006).
In 2005, Ó Briain's eighth show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe was the biggest-selling solo comedy show of the festival."Live Brum: Events on 17 March 2008 ". Live Brum, 17 March 2008. Retrieved on 28 May 2008.
In early 2006, Ó Briain conducted his third tour of the United Kingdom and Ireland. This included shows at the Theatre Royal, in London as well as nine nights in Dublin at Vicar Street. His second night in the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in London was recorded for his first live DVD. His fourth multinational tour followed in late 2007, which as he says in his routine has "no title" but was almost entitled "You Had to Be There".
He performed new tours across the UK and Ireland in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2015 and 2018. His 2010 tour played for 150 dates, to over 225,000 people, including 37 nights in Vicar St. in Dublin, nine nights at the Hammersmith Apollo in London and a first date in Dubai. Each of those three tours were recorded for DVD, and the 2012 tour, entitled 'Craic Dealer', was similarly recorded during his shows at the Edinburgh Playhouse in May 2012. "Craic Dealer" ran for over 150 shows, as did his 2015 tour "Crowd Tickler", this time with dates in Scandinavia, Northern Europe and Australia added to the tour. The tour was recorded for a DVD release.
On 12 March 2011, Ó Briain, Jack Whitehall and Jon Richardson set a new Guinness World Records title for hosting the 'highest stand-up comedy gig in the world', on a British Airways flight in support of Comic Relief.
In 2011, Ó Briain took part in two shows of the 16-date Uncaged Monkeys tour with Professor Brian Cox, Robin Ince, Ben Goldacre, Simon Singh and Chris Addison.
In October 2017, he started touring his show "Voice of Reason". As well as another 37 nights in Vicar St Theatre in Dublin (to bring his total there to 197 shows), "Voice of Reason" was performed more than 175 times, in 20 countries, including debut shows in Reykjavík, Saint Petersburg, Malta, Germany and New Zealand. It was recorded as a BBC special at the Hammersmith Apollo, for broadcast in 2019. He had originally planned to perform the show on debut tours to the United States and Canada in 2020, but this was postponed after the first four US dates, in early March, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Canadian part of the tour resumed in August 2021."Dara Ó Briain: Tour Dates ". Dara Ó Briain website. Retrieved on 16 September 2021
In September 2021, he announced a new show, named "So... Where Were We?", with a tour starting in November 2021."Dara O'Briain Announces So... Where Were We? Residency At Dublin's Vicar Street For November ". Stereoboard. 2 September 2021. Retrieved on 16 September 2021. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, a portion of the tour in Ireland that was originally planned for January 2022 was pushed back to March through June 2022.Dara O'Briain on Twitter - 3:12PM Jan 11, 2022 . - "Irish friends! These are the current dates for the “So, Where Were We?” Irish Tour, including all the re-arranged January dates. Looking forward to seeing you there!". 11 January 2022. Retrieved on 11 January 2022. He has been touring since and extended the tour.
In February 2025, Ó Briain started his Re:Creation UK and Ireland tour.
Television career The Panel was hosted by Ó Briain. Three times nominated for the Best Entertainment show IFTA (Irish Film and Television Awards), the show has a rotating cast of panellists, usually drawn from the world of Irish comedy, discussing the events of the week and interviewing guests. The most regular panellists have been Colin Murphy, Ed Byrne, Neil Delamere, Andrew Maxwell and Mairéad Farrell.
Around 2002, with his profile rising in the UK due to his one-man shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Ó Briain began making appearances on UK television shows such as Bring Me the Head of Light Entertainment (a Channel 5 production) and Never Mind the Buzzcocks. In early 2003, he hosted the second series of BBC Scotland's Live Floor Show.Dessau, Bruce. "Dara O Briain ". The Evening Standard. Retrieved on 4 February 2008. His big break in UK television came in 2003, when he appeared as a guest panellist on the long-running BBC news quiz, Have I Got News for You, subsequently making several appearances as guest host of the show."Dara Ó Briain ". Paramount UK. Retrieved on 25 May 2008.
In 2003, Ó Briain was nominated at the Chortle Comedy Awards for Live Comedy in the categories Best Compère and Best Headline Act (which he would go on to win). In 2004, he won the Best Headliner award again, as well as being nominated for Best Full-length Show. He hosted the comedy panel show Mock the Week during both its original BBC Two run from 2005–2022, and its TLC revival which premiered in 2026.
On 14 September 2005, Ó Briain appeared as a guest on Room 101, where he got rid of children's television presenters (following his work as a presenter on Echo Island) and once-in-a-lifetime experiences (he was given a once-in-a-lifetime experience on the show by being the second guest to pull the lever that opens the chute to Room 101 – the first had been former host Nick Hancock). He also got rid of banter, Gillian McKeith and magicians.
Between 2006 and 2011, Ó Briain starred in the BBC's Three Men in a Boat series, with Griff Rhys Jones and Rory McGrath. The series included the trio rowing the River Thames, as in the 1889 novel of the same name, sailing from London to the Isle of Wight for a sail boat race, borrowing numerous vessels to make their way from Plymouth to the Isles of Scilly. In 2009, the three took to the Irish canals and rivers on a trip from Dublin to Limerick. In 2010, they explored the Isles of Scotland. In 2011, two more series were made; one travelling from Montenegro to Venice, the other travelling down the New England coast in the US to New York.
Ó Briain has also been an extensive newspaper columnist, with pieces published in many national papers in both the UK and Ireland, from The Sunday Times to The Daily Telegraph. On 9 August 2006 he hosted the first edition of his chat show Turn Back Time, which only ran for one series.
He is a relatively frequent panellist on QI and wrote about Ireland in the QI series E annual. He also occasionally appears on Just a Minute on BBC Radio 4.
He also holds the record for greatest number of appearances on the BBC stand-up showcase Live at the Apollo, where he appeared seven times.
On 1 October 2009, Ó Briain released his first book entitled Tickling the English, about what he considers it means to be English. As part of its promotion, he has stated that he is enthusiastic about English culture and a student of English history, his favourite events being the Gin Craze and the English Civil War.Dara Ó Briain Interview, National Theatre, 23 October 2009 In a review of Tickling the English, Ó Briain was described as Sir Terry Wogan's heir apparent as Britain's "favourite Irishman".
Ó Briain has appeared several times in the BBC Radio science / comedy show The Infinite Monkey Cage which premiered on 30 November 2009 on Radio 4.
Since October 2024, Ó Briain has co-presented Curious Cases, a science programme on Radio 4 with Hannah Fry.
In 2010, Ó Briain replaced Adrian Chiles as the presenter of The Apprentice: You're Fired!. After five years, he quit following the 2014 series.
Ó Briain has hosted the British Academy Video Games Awards 9 times between 2009 and 2019, including 2012, when highlights were also shown on Challenge. In 2012 he hosted the Bafta Television awards, the same year he was nominated for a Best Entertainment Performance Award.
From 3 to 5 January 2011, Ó Briain and Brian Cox presented Stargazing Live on BBC Two, three programmes based at the Jodrell Bank Observatory, scheduled to coincide with the conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus, a partial solar eclipse, and the Quadrantid meteor shower. The two presenters hosted a second series of three-hour-long programmes, plus follow-up 30-minute shows called Stargazing Live: Back to Earth, from 16 to 18 January 2012. From 8 to 10 January 2013, they presented the third series, again accompanied by Back to Earth.