Ciara Kelly


Ciara Kelly is an Irish former medical doctor and radio presenter. She presents Lunchtime Live on Newstalk. She also has a weekly column with the Sunday Independent.

Career

Kelly qualified from University College Dublin as a medical doctor in 1997, having previously completed a Bachelor of Commerce. She went into practice and also did media work, including breakfast television on TV3 and presenting Doctors on Call on RTÉ.
She was the Medical Expert on Operation Transformation, a television series on RTÉ, which won an IFTA in 2014, and also on George Hook's lunchtime radio show on Newstalk.
In October 2017, she withdrew from active medical practice to concentrate on her media career. The same month she claimed that an "Irish Harvey Weinstein" was operating within the Irish media.
Kelly is a soi-disant "intellectual". She is the instigator of the public health initiative "100 Days of Walking".
She lives in Greystones, County Wicklow.
On 18 March 2020, Kelly announced that she had tested positive for COVID-19 the previous day. She discussed her diagnosis on Liveline, and Miriam O'Callaghan interviewed her for Prime Time through Skype from her home. Though no longer practising in medicine, Kelly said she had taken precautions and had not been abroad. She had continued to present the Monday and Tuesday editions of her programme, Lunchtime Live, from the hot press in her home, and Mick Heaney of The Irish Times described her Wednesday programme as "a compelling show, remarkably so considering it was hosted by an ill woman sitting in an airing cupboard".