GETTING ready to pack up and ahead for Minneapolis is Siobhan Cleary, presenter of RTE's very popular Check Up series. She's off to join husband Joe Dowling, who moved there last October to take up a new job as artistic director of the Guthrie Theatre. Joe arrived back in Dublin this week for the Check Up end of series party and the auction of the family home in Blackrock.
"We'll be there for three years and we've our eye on a house over there so it makes sense to sell up here," says Siobhan, whose son Ronan is looking forward to enrolling in an American high school once he finishes his junior cert here in June.
The party was unusual for a TV party in that they invited people who had appeared on the show, as well as medical people and the various producers and researchers who had worked on Check Up over its eight years.
Respiratory surgeon Muiris Fitzgerald gave a speech praising the programme for making consultants seem less scary, and Maureen Potter, a long time fan of the series, suggested that Oprah had better watch out because Siobhan, far from dropping her on screen career once she leaves Ireland, has already been talking to TV people in the States about possible projects.