Education

Sweeney attended school at the University College Dublin, where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in English and History. Sweeney also earned a Higher Diploma in Education from the same university.

Career

Sweeney started out on her career as a newscaster in 1986 on 103 FM, a famous radio station owned by the renowned Chris Cary. The station mainly talked about energy power issues and concerns. She co-presented on a show called ‘Wake up With Energy’ with other famous anchors like Pat Courtney and Bob Gallico. She however did not use her own name in the show; she was using the name "Lisa Moore" as her on air name.

After about two years working there, Sweeney left the station in 1988. After leaving the station, she joined yet another radio station called RTE 2FM, where she also worked as a newscaster.

Her TV career began when she was working at the RTE 2FM radio station. Due to her excellent performance, she got promoted to become a TV reporter and news anchor. One of her major assignments at RTE was in the year 1993 when she was selected to host the Eurovision Song Contest on behalf of the station, which had a view of more than 350 million people, and the broadcast was live. Notably, she broadcasted in three different languages.

In 1994, Sweeney left RTE for CNN after working there for 6 years. She first joined the CNN International Headquarters in Atlanta, where she first worked as a producer and an anchor part-time. Due to her exemplary performance, Sweeney was later promoted to become a full-time anchor. Because of her new position at CNN, Fionnuala had to relocate to London. She anchored World One while in London.

Her career experience since joining CNN has been nothing less of great.  She has worked on difficult assignments, and has covered news from Europe, the Middle East and Africa among others. In 2011, Sweeney covered the story of the fall of the then Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, which won an Emmy and Peabody Award as the best coverage.

 She is a brave lady and has covered quite critical stories such as Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank, their parliamentary elections. Sweeney has also anchored the widely watched uprising against Colonel Moammar Gadhafi in Libya.

Being courageous and confident, Sweeney made headlines again when she anchored and reported on the Israel-Hezbollah Conflict from Haifa in 2006. The coverage won the network an Edward R. Murrow award.

Some of her other coverage’s include the Good Friday Peace Agreement in Northern Ireland, special programming across Eastern Europe marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of communism; the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in Portugal. She also covered the politically delicate topic of and Tony Blair's resignation as the British Prime Minister.

In 2005, Fionnuala Sweeney covered the London7/7 bombings. She reported from reported from many countries, including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia and Slovakia during the period in which they were preparing to join the European Union (EU). 

On 25th July 2014, Sweeney covered AIDS epidemic in Africa, a story that went viral. Confirming again that she is good at what she does. She also emphasized on the causes of cancer in the coverage, and the precautions people should take among other health issues.

Her other influential coverage’s include some about domestic violence and the challenges that married women go through because of issues to do with cultures and other beliefs.

Awards  

To add on to the awards mentioned above, Sweeney was named the anchor of Your World Today in 2002.

She covered the CNN Breaking News: Libya Revolution – Rebels Enter Tripoli and Gadhafi Compound, which was nominated in for the Peabody Award, which she her team had won in the coverage of the fallen Egyptian president mentioned above.

Personal life

Sweeney has kept her personal life quite private. Nothing much is on the internet on her marriage and children whatsoever.

Fionnuala Sweeney is a talented, brilliant and confident woman. She is a role model to many young people and she has indeed succeeded in her career. We wish her more success and pray that she continues to influence vulnerable people and speak up against vices.