RTE presenter Ryan Tubridy’s younger brother, Garrett, has been appointed by the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) as tournament director for the Women’s Rugby World Cup (WRWC) which will be played in Dublin and Belfast in 2017. Tubridy, 39, will be responsible for planning and delivering the tournament at venues in Dublin and Belfast.
For the past 10 years, he has worked as tournaments’ operations manager with European Rugby Cup (ERC). Since 2005, he has helped with the development and delivery of the commercial and operational programmes for the Heineken Cup and the Amlin Challenge Cup. This season he held the same role for the ERC and Challenge Cups.
He was previously a manager at Deloitte for 10 years and spent a year in corporate banking with Barclays in London. With a strong political pedigree, Tubridy ran for Fianna Fáil in the local elections in Dublin’s Pembroke-Rathmines area in 2009, but was not elected.
His grandfather, Todd Andrews, was involved in the 1916 Rising and fought on the Republican side in the Civil War. As chairman of CIE, he became infamous as the man who closed the Harcourt Street railway line, now used as a route for Luas trams. His uncles are former Foreign Affairs minister David Andrews and the late MEP Niall Andrews.
His cousins have also been active politically. Barrister Barry Andrews, now chief executive at overseas relief aid agency Goal, was a FF deputy for Dún Laoghaire and a junior minister, before he lost his seat in the last general election. Chris Andrews defected from FF and was subsequently elected to Dublin City Council on a Sinn Féin ticket last year.
