Press

Deirdre Ní Choistín appointed Director General of TG4

04.03.25

The Board of TG4 has announced that Deirdre Ní Choistín has been appointed as Director General of TG4 with the statutory consent of the Government following a competitive public recruitment process. She will succeed Alan Esslemont who has been Director General of TG4 since 2016 and who is stepping down in April 2025. Deirdre Ní Choistín will be the fourth Director General of the station since it was founded in 1996, and the first woman to be appointed to the role.
 

Cathaoirleach of the TG4 Board Anna Ní Ghallachair said: ‘On behalf of the Board, I am delighted to welcome the appointment of Deirdre Ní Choistín as Director General of TG4. Deirdre has very considerable experience in many roles within the organisation as well as the vision and qualifications which will ensure the kind of leadership and strategic planning that will bring TG4 to the next level of excellence and recognition, for the benefit of Irish language communities in Ireland and internationally.

As a new era for TG4 begins with Deirdre’s appointment, I wish to acknowledge and thank our outgoing Director General Alan Esslemont for the many achievements of the TG4 team under his stewardship over the last eight years. As Director General, Alan showed outstanding leadership and creative vision which brought Irish language broadcasting and cinema to the world stage and which created a cultural role model for minority language media at home and abroad.’
 

Deirdre was TG4’s first Head of News and Current Affairs. She was appointed in 2022 with responsibility for developing a strategy and vision for TG4’s news and current affairs. She is also Editor of current affairs series Iniúchadh TG4 and of children’s news service Nuacht Cúla4.
 

Deirdre Ní Choistín has over twenty-five years experience in TG4, having begun working with the station in 1999, shortly after the channel rebranded from TnaG to TG4. She was a Producer and Director for fourteen years. She established MOLSCÉAL, a popular online news and entertainment platform for TG4’s core Irish speaking audience in 2017. Prior to being appointed as Head of News and Current Affairs, she was TG4’s Communications Manager from 2019 to 2022 where she implemented an innovative new multi-platform communications strategy.
 

She was raised in Kilcock, Co. Kildare, the eldest of five children. Her father John Joe, is from An Rinn Gaeltacht in Co. Waterford and her mother Betty is from Co. Carlow. She attended the newly established gaelscoil at the time, Scoil Chearbhaill Uí Dálaigh in Leixlip Co. Kildare, and attended Maynooth Post-Primary secondary school. She graduated with a degree in Irish and French from Trinity College Dublin in 1998 before undertaking a Higher Diploma in Applied Communications through Irish at the University of Galway.

She was awarded first class honours in a Professional Masters in Business by University College Cork / Irish Management Institute last year, where she specialised in Advanced Strategy, Leadership and Innovation.
 

Deirdre is married to Breandán Ó Conláin and they are raising their four sons through Irish in An Spidéal, Connemara.

Deirdre Ní Choistín said, ‘It is a joy and a privilege for me to be appointed as Director General of TG4. TG4 has had a special place in my heart since the day it was launched on Halloween night in 1996 while I was still at university. At a crucial time in Irish language broadcasting, I am looking forward to working with the team to prepare TG4 for the future by cultivating creativity, better serving our audiences across all platforms, and further development of the independent production sector, in the Gaeltacht in particular.’