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Dara Ó Briain [da-ra oh breen] is an Irish comedian and television presenter. He began his career as a children's television presenter on RTÉ before segueing into comedy.
Ó Briain's stand up career took off at the turn of the millennium as be began to tour heavily, performing across the continents in Europe, Asia, Australia, Dubai, Boston, Adelaide, Shanghai and New York. He has also made appearances at the Edinburgh Festival and at the Just For Laughs festival in Montreal.
The comedian has also been an extensive newspaper columnist, pieces published in many national papers from the Sunday Times to the Irish Independent.
Dara has also appeared extensively on RTÉ television: he was a presenter on the bilingual (Irish and English) children's programme Echo Island, appeared as a team captain on Don't Feed the Gondolas (1998-2000), and presented It's a Family Affair and The Panel (2003-onwards). He also appeared on the UK panel games Bring Me The Head of Light Entertainment (a Channel 5 production) and Never Mind The Buzzcocks. In 2002 he became host of BBC2's Live Floor Show a showcase for fellow stand up comics which brought him to the attention of a wider mainstream audience and led to a number of guest appearances as host of the popular news quiz, Have I Got News For You.
He was nominated in 2003 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.
In 2005 he hosted the comedy panel game Mock the Week, a blend between Have I Got News For You and Whose Line is it Anyway?.