RTE’s Mary Fanning, a great friend to racing and someone who has covered every aspect of the industry over the past four decades, has retired from RTE.

Mary, a breeder on her Quinnsboro Farm in Monasterevin with husband Larry McCormack, has produced several winners, including Cheltenham Festival and Galway Plate winner Finger Onthe Pulse.

In her role as a producer and reporter on Nationwide, Mary has travelled the length and breadth of the country, going behind the scenes of the industry and she has always hammered home the importance of the racing industry as a cornerstone of rural employment.

Her career started in the Tuam Herald in Co Galway with the legendary, editor, J.P. Burke in Galway, where she got Wednesdays off work for hunting with Molly O’Rourke and the Bermingham hounds.

Mary has won 10 national awards for her work, including the prestigious Justice Media overall winner in 2017.

Among Mary’s most memorable features was her Newmarket Sale programme in 2016. Mary had filmed features with Tom Whelan of Churchview Farm and Bill Dwan, the Castlebridge Consignment, in advance of the sales, about the preparation of the yearlings and the logistics of getting them safely to auction.

Nationwide also travelled to Cheltenham and to Jonjo O’Neill’s Jackdaws Castle in 2013 to catch up Jonjo O’Neill and A.P. McCoy. “That was very moving for me, as Finger Onthe Pulse and another horse we bred out of that family were both in the yard,” Mary recalled.

In 2019, Mary met up again with champion jockey Pat Smullen, who spoke openly about his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.

Mary also went behind the scenes of the Godolphin Stud and Stable Staff Awards and showed viewers the different background the award winners had.

“It has been a privilege to work on Nationwide for 30 years,” Mary told us. “It is the epitome of public service broadcasting, and it is wonderful that the Irish people have put their trust in us.

“I have travelled the country with Nationwide for 30 years and, before that with news, and the racing stories have always been closest to my heart.”

Mary is currently writing a children’s book, The Children of Quinnsboro Farm. All the characters in the book, friends and foes, are based on people and animals she has encountered on the banks of the Grand Canal that borders the farm, and people who have been associated with the horses and the farmyard.