Jacqui Hurley is an Irish athlete, sports manager, sports broadcaster and chat show host employed by Raidió Teilifís Éireann. She is the co-presenter of Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1 and presents the sports news on RTÉ television news each day. Hurley has played at the highest level in the sports of basketball and camogie and currently manages the Irish under-16 women's basketball team. On 1 February 2009, she became the first woman to present a sports show on RTÉ Radio when she began working on Sunday Sport.
Early years
Hurley grew up in Australia in the 1980s. She is the daughter of David and Mairead Hurley and sister of Catriona and Sean. She played basketball for Ireland and camogie for Cork and has since taken on a management role with the Irish under-16 female basketball team. She is a sports enthusiast. She graduated from Mary Immaculate College in 2006 with a degree in Media and Communication Studies. She has webbed toes, a feature of her anatomy which she has openly discussed on radio. She was paralysed for several days when she was 17 due to a sports accident after she and another player crashed into each other.
Career
Television
Hurley initially spent some time as an intern with CBS Television in Mississippi, United States. She also worked in local radio before joining RTÉ in 2006. She was only supposed to stay with CBS for eight months but she remained for a year, developing her love of sports broadcasting. Hurley's RTÉ television work includes reports for the sports magazine OB Sport, a Friday preview slot on the daytime chat show Seoige, the weekly "60 Sixty" segment on the League of Ireland magazine programme Monday Night Soccer aired on RTÉ Two, where she questions a different footballer each week for sixty seconds. Hurley has presented the sports quiz showKnow The Score on RTE since November 2016.
Radio
Hurley started working for Limerick's Live 95fm in Limerick after her time in college, where she covered Munster's 2006 Heineken Cup win for the station. On 18 October 2018 while speaking on Limericks Live 95 FM, Joe Nash asked Des Cahill how Jacqui Hurley was getting on. Joe Nash made reference to the fact Jacqui Hurley has a soft spot for Limerick. Joe Nash is owner/presenter of Limericks Live 95FM, the station where Jacqui Hurley worked in the early 2000s She often appeared on The Colm & Jim-Jim Breakfast Show on RTÉ 2fm where her was a regular feature. In early 2009, Hurley took over as the co-presenter of Sunday Sport alongside Con Murphy on RTÉ Radio 1. In doing so she made history as the first ever female presenter in the 40-year history of Sunday Sport at the age of 25. She writes the "Jacqui's Week" column for Sunday Sport.
Writing
Hurley's first book, Girls Play Too: Inspiring Stories of Irish Sportswomen, will be published by Merrion Press in September 2020. An illustrated children's book, Girls Play Too celebrates some of Ireland's top contemporary female athletes.
Personal life
She lives in Dublin with her husband, Shane McMahon. They have one child, Luke. In August 2011, she and Dublin footballers Eamonn Fennell and Eoghan O'Gara launched the Tomás Mulligan Memorial Cycle, an annual event held in aid of suicide crisis centre Pieta House. Her brother Seán was killed in a car crash at the age of 25 on30 November 2011.
