Darren Smith
After leaving school with stunning Leaving Cert* results in the early 90's Darren Smith spent eight years in the Irish music industry for a crime he didn't commit. Since leaving music he's dedicated his life to providing entertainment to the people of earth. Mainly involving television but with a few detours into talent management, theatre production and mime**. He has either created, written, directed, produced or exec produced all of Kite's output since setting it up in 2004.
In 2008 he co-wrote Dustin The Turkey's hauntingly beautiful Eurovision losing "Irlandé Douze Pointe", shortly afterwards he retired from songwriting. *Not in a good way. **Not true. Contact: darren.smith@kiteentertainment.com |
Mairéad Whelan
Mairéad was first attracted to the showbiz lifestyle with a glitzy job that involved reading the death notices on local radio. Since joining Kite in 2016 as Head of Development, she has single-handedly turned it into one of the most successful production companies in Irish television history. This isn’t true but it makes for good reading on LinkedIn.
As a Series Producer, Mairéad has been at the helm of popular Entertainment formats like 'Ireland's Fittest Family' and ‘Celebrity Bainisteoir’, as well as award winning Documentary series such as ‘The New Irish’. She's has also produced lots of things that didn’t win awards, like ‘A Story With Me In It', ‘Bad Fellas - The History of Organised Crime in Ireland’, and "Power In The Blood', but they were critically acclaimed, and that’s good enough for her… honest. Contact: mairead.whelan@kiteentertainment.com |
Gráinne Ní Fhiannachta
Gráinne, a fiercely proud West Kerry native, recently joined Kite after 13 years with RTÉ. Working across every show and genre imaginable, she finally settled in the Entertainment department where she attended more Eurovision’s than Johnny Logan as part of the Irish delegation. Her last hoorah with RTÉ came as part of the Centenary team where she helped produce one of the largest and most impressive live events ever broadcast on Irish television. When it finished she dropped her mic and left to become an essential member of our Ireland’s Got Talent team.
When she’s not making telly you can find Gráinne on the family farm in Kerry - a piece of land so scenic it would bring a tear to an American tourist’s eye. If you want to find out how to pronounce her surname, you can copy and paste her email address here grainne.nifhiannachta@kiteentertainment.com |
David Noble
The first piece of advice David got in his television career was to always say yes. When this quickly saw him jumping off a 5-metre diving board in a thong for an ITV game show, he decided it was ok to start asking more questions. A love of producing entertainment and comedy series has since seen him make a number of shows for the BBC and Channel 4 with the likes of Matt Lucas, Rhod Gilbert and Greg Davies.
He co-produced CBBC’s first ever comedy panel show, ‘The Dog Ate My Homework’, which was nominated for two BAFTA’s… and won neither. After making a lot of telly in the UK for nearly a decade, David returned home and is now the Series Producer of Gogglebox Ireland. He has since joined full-time as a Senior Producer. Contact: david.noble@kiteentertainment.com |