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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
Sport
Cormac O'Shea

Inside RTE Sunday Game star Joanne Cantwell's family life - partner, kids and thoughts on fellow pundits

Joanne Cantwell will be back on Sunday Game presenting duties this weekend as the hurling championship returns with two cracking games from Munster.

And Cantwell, now the face of GAA on RTE, will be back for her fourth season at the helm after taking over from Michael Lyster back in 2019.

But who is the popular presenter? Here's all you need to know.

Read More:Keith Barry has perfect response to online trolls who describe his new RTE show as 'nonsense'

Who is Joanne Cantwell?

Joanne, aged in her early 40s, is a sports journalist and broadcaster from Dublin.

She studied in DCU before working in FM104 and TV3 before her big move to RTE.

Outside of work, Joanne's life revolves around bringing up her two young daughters Emmy and Alex with husband Shay in Kildare.

Mum to two kids

Joanne Cantwell has said that her two daughters, Emmy and Alex, are not massive GAA fans like her.

But The Sunday Game frontwoman is not surprised because none of her four sisters followed sport growing up, it was just her and her father.

She joked that introducing football and hurling with her husband Shay has been a slow burner at home with the youngsters.

Pictured ahead of the start of RTÉ's Coverage of the GAA Championship this weekend are Joanne Cantwell, Darren Frehill, Ciarán Whelan, Jacqui Hurley, Ursula Jacob and Des Cahill. (Andres Poveda)

Joanne told RSVP Live: "I am trying to get them to become massive GAA fans, if they want to.

"I grew up with four sisters and none of them had any interest in sport, so it was my father and I against five others, my sister and my mother, at home. I am used to having to fight the fight."

Standard of punditry

She said: "We have a great line-up of pundits and I was recently thinking that we are really lucky with the pundits we have in sport in Ireland.

"Whether it is GAA, soccer or rugby, we are blessed with the numbers and quality we have because lots of countries don’t have pundits who can say what they want to say and also be taken to task as well. All of our programmes allow people to say what they want to say."

RTE's Joanne Cantwell and Joe Brolly (©INPHO/James Crombie)

Dealing with the pressure of RTE role

Speaking after landing the job, Joanne told The RTE Guide: "I don't have time to think about it as I'm so busy, it's just another programme.

The former Dublin GAA star clarified: "Of course, it's not just another programme."

"It's an iconic show and I'm taking over from an icon. But people aren't turning on their tellies to see me. They are turning on to watch the hurling and camogie."

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