Beyond Noel Kelly: Who are the other agents managing Ireland’s ‘talent’?

There used to be a photograph on the home page of NK Management’s website showing the agent Noel Kelly with his galaxy of top talent. Every now and then a star would disappear; Photoshopped out after they left the agency. Celebrity garden designer Diarmuid Gavin departed a few years ago; the 2FM presenter Lottie Ryan disappeared earlier this month after she and Kelly “respectfully parted ways”.

Other recent exits from NK Management are Ciara Doherty, a Virgin Media presenter, and Newstalk’s Ciara Kelly who said they wanted to be seen as impartial in their coverage of the RTÉ payments controversy.

Some of Kelly’s unique selling point may be gone too, with Kevin Bakhurst, the RTÉ director general, stating he will not talk to the agent, who still represents a plethora of the station’s presenters including Claire Byrne, Joe Duffy and Kathryn Thomas. If other Kelly clients decide to leave him, where could they go? What other “talent management” agencies might snap them up?

Carol & Associates is one of the biggest, yet it rarely handles contract negotiations for “talent”. It was founded in the late 1980s by Carol Hanna, who looked after singers Johnny Logan and Linda Martin. Since her retirement in 2018, Carol & Associates has been managed by Gráinne MacAnthony, who has a team of four staff working from offices in Dalkey.

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While it does represent a small number of RTÉ people such as Marty Whelan, as well as comedian Mario Rosenstock, Carol & Associates is typically hired by corporate and private clients to source MCs or hosts to appear or speak at events. “We mostly specialise in booking talent, and not representation as such,” says MacAnthony.

Joanne Byrne, a director of Presence PR, says while public relations is her “bread and butter”, it has a sister company, Presence People, that does representation. On its books are the TV and radio presenters Brian Dowling, Alison Curtis, Jenny Greene, Nicky Byrne and Lucy Kennedy. “They’re nearly all women – strong-minded, strong-willed women, a bit like myself,” says Byrne, who notes the sudden interest in what agents do. “What a lot of people think of is ‘getting your clients more money’, which is one goal. We all know it’s hard for someone to go into an employer and say ‘I am worth x’. It’s much easier for someone else to go in and say ‘he or she is worth x’.”

[ Talent is now a dirty word at RTÉ, even though the broadcaster badly needs more of it ]

Agents are generally accepted by employers, she says. “Without a doubt there are people on the other side of the table who see agents as a necessary evil. I have been screamed at in negotiations, told certain things, but you act as professionally as you can, because ultimately a lot of my clients are freelance. They don’t have the safety net of a salary. So I am trying to get the very best deal for them, to alleviate the money stress in their lives.”

Many of Ireland’s talent agencies were formed at the tail end of the Celtic Tiger, and the market was static until recently. Since 2021, however, several players have come on to the scene including Bigger Stage, formed by Pat Kiely, a former managing director of Virgin Media Television, and Jane Russell, founder of the talent agency Outlaw Management. Among the stars it represents are comedians Des Bishop and Ardal O’Hanlon, while TV presenters Sarah McInerney and Sinead Kennedy are recent recruits.

“Bigger Stage is a media and entertainment company of which talent forms an important pillar,” Russell says. “We look after a roster of top Irish talent and we also do a lot of work in terms of international TV production – an aspect of our business that is different from other agencies. We provide services for talent visiting Ireland, such as the actor Jamie Foxx who was here for a few weeks last year.

“We aim for a strategic model, providing an opportunity for talent to feed into the creative or development process at an earlier stage. For example, we did a show with Virgin Media, an on-air pilot for a US talent network, with our client Deirdre O’Kane as a judge alongside Boy George. There’s a powerful synergy in having all that under one roof. That was where we did see a gap in the Irish market.”

Another agency that has seen a gap is Matchstick Ireland, an offshoot of the Matchstick Group launched in the UK by Max Parker in March 2021. Some influencers have become shareholders in the Irish operation, including Vogue Williams, James Kavanagh and Holly Carpenter. The broadcaster Louise McSharry has moved there, having been with another agency.

According to its website Matchstick is the “most disruptive” entertainment management agency, and the only one that can offer representation in the UK and Ireland, “allowing further reach, revenue, and awareness for our Irish talent”. Matchstick says: “We strongly believe that Ireland is an untapped resource to some incredible talent who haven’t been offered a proper management service.”

Another recent entrant is the Collaborations Agency, whose founder is Lynn Hunter. Its talent includes several content creators, mostly notably Nathan Anthony, the Northern Irish home cook who has had a British and Irish best-seller with his Bored of Lunch books and has a combined social media reach of almost 4 million viewers.

“Over seven years ago a lot of people started asking me to represent them, and I spotted a gap in the market for an agency that really joined the dots between brands, talent and content creators,” said Hunter.

Contract negotiation is a key part of her business, as well as creating events and podcasts. “We are not just bookers – we build people’s brands, and create brands for them, quite successfully as well. We have created authors such as Nathan. We did that deal for him.”

As well as the generalists, there are agencies specialising in particular sectors. Platinum One is the best-known sports management company representing professional players. Launched in 2011 by Niall Woods, Navy Blue Sports has an impressive roster of rugby stars, including Garry Ringrose, Caelan Doris and Andrew Porter, but also media personalities such as Darragh Maloney, Lisa Fallon and Richard Sadlier.

Founded in 1989 by Lisa and Richard Cook, the Lisa Richards Agency specialises in the arts, with the likes of magician Keith Barry and actress Pauline McLynn on its books, but also RTÉ broadcasters Philip Boucher Hayes and Tony Connelly. Marianne Gunn O’Connor describes itself as a ‘literary, film and TV agency’, and most of her ‘talent’ are writers, including Liz Nugent, Sinead Moriarty and Claudia Carroll.

Speaking agencies are another specialisation, and two of the leading ones were launched within a year of each other in 2005-06. “NK Management is a different talent agency to what I would run – he is more management of talent, whereas what I have is a classic speaker bureau, providing outside voices for company events,” says Frances Keane, founder of Personally Speaking. “Well-known people, sports stars, motivational speakers, economic experts, whatever – we recommend to clients, or help define who would be the best person for a certain audience or event. We are the middle ground.”

Keane says she has been asked several times to do personal representation, but sees it as a different type of business: “You have to know what you’re at when you get into it.”

Susan Gavin, founder of Speaker Solutions, says it has a portfolio of about 100 speakers, and is generally approached by corporate clients with specific requirements. “We follow their brief and remain as unbiased as possible,” she says. “We give impartial advice on who we feel is going to be the right fit, within budget, and who can deal with the topics the client wants.”

Keane says there may be a little “nervousness” in the sector for a while, due to the RTÉ pay controversy. “Those people who use agencies such as ourselves, I would hope they are positively disposed to the value they get,” she says.

Gavin describes her business model as transparent, and straightforward. “I don’t feel [this controversy] will affect us. I started in business just before the economic crash, got through that, got through Covid, and despite everything that’s happened the speaker market is still there.”

Everyone says there’s a collegiate spirit among Irish talent agencies, who often co-operate. With the arrival of disrupters, NK Management losing stars, and advertising spend moving from broadcast to social media, it could get more competitive.

“A new wave of agencies has come in, particularly tied to influencers, such as Collaboration and Versify,” says Joanne Byrne of Presence. “Matchstick has Glenda Gilson, who has a strong media presence having been on TV for years. Disruption is a natural progression; that doesn’t concern me. I focus on the people on my books. It’s challenging to get them constant work.”

Neither she nor any of the other agencies report picking up new clients over the last month. “I have not had one phone call or email,” says Byrne. “I don’t doubt in the end there will be movement, perhaps months down the line, but that’s in keeping with the nature of the industry. People come and go.”