Dearbhail McDonald is an award-winning Journalist, Author, Broadcaster and MC. A global Eisenhower Fellow, Dearbhail has won a series of awards for her contribution to public affairs journalism including the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Smurfit Business School, the Mary Cummins Award for Women of Outstanding Achievement in Media, an inaugural Dublin City University Special Alumni Achievement award, as well as Irish Tatler’s Media Woman of the Year. The author of Bust: How the Courts Exposed the Rotten Heart of the Irish Economy (Penguin), Dearbhail has used her platforms to consistently highlight a range of diverse issues affecting women including workplace equality, gender based violence, the socio-economic impacts of declining birth rates (Fertility Shock, RTE, 2019) and the contribution of women religious in Irish Life (The Last Nuns in Ireland, RTE, 2024). President of the Strategy Committee of the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris, Dearbhail has served on the boards of Fighting Words, Ireland’s national creative writing centre for children and young adults, the St. Stephen’s Green Trust and the External Advisory Board of Maynooth University Department of Law. Dearbhail holds an LL.B (Law) from Trinity College Dublin as well as a Masters Degree in Journalism from Dublin City University.