A New Life: After a lifetime reporting from across the world Denis Tuohy tells Brian O'Connell he is used to uncertainty.
You've been an international broadcaster for almost 40 years. The memoirs are done and dusted. Even if you could afford it, the word retire doesn't register in your vocabulary. You still need a challenge. So what next?
For BBC and ITN foreign correspondent Denis Tuohy, the answer was straightforward - move house, jack in the job and, at 70, start all over again in the hope of rejuvenating a career that stalled decades earlier.
"I attended Queen's College in Belfast in the 1960s and got taken in by the acting bug. In my final year, to help concentrate on my studies, I took up debating and began developing an ease with public speaking.
"On leaving Queen's, I took a part in a play in Dublin called Over the Bridge at the Olympia Theatre. At the same time my mother saw an ad in the newspaper looking for newscasters with the BBC. So I applied, not thinking I had any chance of getting it.
"As it happens, I was called for interview and got the job, becoming the first Catholic newscaster in the BBC and thus ending my acting career."
While newscasting provided a certain amount of routine, Tuohy was drawn to the more unpredictable and adventurous life of a foreign correspondent. Essentially working as a freelance, the idea of a nine-to-five job didn't exist, yet the chance to document some of the most significant events of the 20th century made up for the irregular hours.
"I count myself fortunate enough to have witnessed some extraordinary events. Chile in the 1970s was very exciting as Allende was elected president. It subsequently went wrong of course, leading to years of terror, but Allende himself was one of the most charming and engaging personalities I have met.
"The other story that sticks out in my mind was covering the aftermath of the Manson family murders in the States. It was just before Charlie Manson was on trial for the murder of Sharon Tate, and I had got a tip-off that some members of the Manson family were still in the California area.
"We found them living in an old B movie ranch outside LA, and they were fascinated that we were from England. They could be charming and nice one minute and then suddenly turn nasty and hostile the next. It was an unnerving experience."
Earning a reputation as a reliable and dogged interviewer, Tuohy found his professional match in one of Britain's most formidable politicians.
"I'm very proud of the fact that in her memoirs, Margaret Thatcher singled out my interview with her in 1979 as the most hostile in her career. Many years later I interviewed her again at the Conservative headquarters, and she arrived very tired and vulnerable, which is not a word you hear associated with her too often.
"By the time the interview came about she was all guns blazing of course, and I often thought if she displayed more of the vulnerability she would have endeared herself more politically. She enjoyed a good fight though."
Life as a broadcaster came at a cost though, with Tuohy routinely missing out on family weddings, birthdays and get-togethers. Fortunately it hasn't adversely affected his relationships with his children. When time came to leave broadcasting, it was a case of a change is as good as a retirement.
"The decision to leave broadcasting came because I felt I didn't need to prove myself anymore. I also got restless and needed a new challenge and decided to try something else.
"The first thing I did was to move geographical location, and settled in a part of Ireland - west Cork - that I've never really known. So I settled in to write my memoirs, something I'd always started yet given up on in the past. They were published last year and I was still searching for something to do.
"So a friend of mine, who'd known me when I was young, said 'why don't you give acting another go'. At that moment I realised I was never really at peace throughout my career, in the back of my mind I always wanted to return to acting."
So far so good, with appearances in Fair City, The Clinic, and RTÉ's political drama Fallout, playing, above all things, a newscaster.
Yet while TV comes as second nature to Tuohy, the uncertainties of the stage and a live audience are something he is still getting used to.
"For the stage, the general thing is to play it big, which is vastly different from working in front of a camera. The uncertainty of an actor's life doesn't bother me - I was never one for routine. I have been freelance all my life so I'll never really retire.
"I still need to work, not as much as I once did, or I don't have the same pressure as a young actor has to deal with, but I do need to earn a crust. Getting used to learning lines is hard work.
"At the moment I'm playing the King of Naples in a Shakespeare production outdoors in Cork, something I would have never have considered myself doing. So I'm not going to predict what may come next."
Denis Tuohy appeared in Corcadorca's production of The Tempest from June 22nd to July 1st, as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival.