William Crawley


William Crawley is a Belfast-born BBC journalist and broadcaster. He is the presenter of Talkback, a daily radio phone-in show on BBC Radio Ulster, and he is a presenter of Sunday on BBC Radio 4. He has also made several television series for BBC Northern Ireland.

Early life

William Crawley was born and raised in North Belfast. Crawley was educated at Grove Primary School, Dunlambert Secondary School, Belfast Royal Academy and Queen's University, where he read philosophy. He read theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. He was awarded a doctorate in philosophy by The Queen’s University of Belfast, for a dissertation on the epistemology of the American philosopher Alvin Plantinga.
Prior to his career in the media, he worked as a university lecturer in philosophy and theology and, having been licensed, then subsequently ordained into the ministry of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland in the mid-1990s, worked as assistant minister in First Presbyterian Church, New York City, and Fisherwick Presbyterian Church, Belfast, before serving as Presbyterian chaplain at the University of Ulster. He later resigned from the ordained ministry and from membership of the church before beginning his career as a journalist. He has described himself as "a lapsed Protestant."

Television programmes