George Hook – Keynote Speaker

George Hook is an Irish broadcaster, journalist and rugby union pundit. He had a career as a rugby union coach and businessman, before becoming a rugby pundit with Irish television station RTÉ. He hosts The Right Hook on the Irish nationwide radio station Newstalk and appeared as a coach on RTÉ’s reality TV show, Celebrity Bainisteoir.
George grew up in Cork and attended Presentation Brothers College, a fee-paying school and rugby union stronghold. Subsequently he attended Rathmines College of Commerce.

George Hook has had a number of jobs, beginning as a temporary clerk for CIÉ, and later becoming a travelling salesman for the Burroughs Corporation (now Unisys). He also ran a catering business for over twenty years. He coached London Irish, Connacht, and St. Benildus College, as well as the American National Team in the 1987 Rugby World Cup.

Hook’s radio show on Newstalk 106 ‘The Right Hook’ is a popular evening drive-time programme. Hook appears as a rugby pundit on RTÉ on a regular basis and appeared as a judge on RTE celebrity dancing show ‘Jigs & Reels’. He has also been parodied in The State of Us.

In 2005, he published an autobiography, “Time Added On”.

In 2009, he visited the impoverished Caribbean island nation of Haiti where he was moved to tears by the plight of the poor people who lived there so much that he organised a recruitment drive to get volunteers to go there on a house building week The next day a vicious earthquake struck Haiti. After the earthquake Hook was heard to say: “It is a godforsaken place. God has literally forsaken it.” Following the January 2010 earthquake. Hook urged his radio listeners to donate money.

George Hook is also the patron of Comber Foundation, an Irish charity working in Romania since 1991. His daughter Michelle McGill is also a trustee. The charity provides homes in the community for adults with disabilities who grew up in institutions and orphanages.