Ring Girls

‘Documentary on One’ – RTE Radio 1, Saturday July 30th, 2pm.

Available as free download/podcast from http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/radio-documentary-ring-girls-boxing.html

‘Ring Girls’ is a radio documentary which gives voice to a group of women who are usually only seen and not heard. Five young Irishwomen offer lively and entertaining insights into the world of Ring Girls – the women who climb into a boxing-ring between rounds and totter about on high-heels, wearing big smiles and small clothes, holding a card above their head declaring the number of the next round.

Why do they do it? How did they get into it?

And what do they do with the rest of their lives?

These were the questions that set programme-maker Niall Fallon on a journey around the country, and across to England, to meet with the women who work as Ring-Girls in Ireland. And he met them in unexpected places. Not just at boxing and

cage-fighting events, but also at photo-shoots, celebrity-parties in Chelsea, -

and even barber-shops!

Putting models and dancers on the radio might seem an odd idea – but there’s more to Ring Girls than meets the eye. Featured Ring Girls in the documentary are:

- Suzi Kelly, one of a sextet of dancing hairdressers from Cork, who was running her own barber-shop while still in school;

- Olivia and Luiza Hogan, two sisters from Tallaght. Olivia is a college-student who also presents a radio-show on RTE Pulse, and Luiza started off in the Billy Barry school, performed at Wembley in a girl-band, and is now a rapper performing as ‘Lucci Minx’;

- Joanna Fitzpatrick, a Galway dancer who is worried about getting out of the cage alive at a cage-fighting tournament, and whose many costume-changes lead to her being told “I’ve never seen a girl change her knickers so many times in one night”;

– and Deborah O’ Donnell, a London-based glamour-model and Babestation TV presenter (‘Cleo’ on Babestation), who was bullied as a teenager in her hometown of Omagh for her large-breasted physique but who has used her body to create a successful career for herself – and got a boost to that career from working as a Ring Girl.

In a light and easy-going manner, the Ring Girls manage to explore notions of gender-roles, body-image, stereotyping, independence, ambition, and relationships, just by telling us about their own lives.

‘Ring Girls’ was broadcast as part of the award-winning ‘Documentary on One’ series on RTE Radio 1 at 2pm on Saturday July 30th, repeated at 7pm the following day, Sunday July 31st, and is available as a free download and podcast from the RTE website at

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/radio-documentary-ring-girls-boxing.html

For more information, contact:

Niall Fallon

Tel: 086-8266507 / 091-581334

Email: ringgirldoc@hotmail.com