He grew up in Milltown, County Kildare, and studied history at University College Dublin.
He worked as a schoolteacher then trained as a barrister, but pursued a career in broadcasting instead.
[1] O'Donoghue joined Telefís Éireann in the early 1960s, and presented the new station's first current affairs programme, Broadsheet.
O’Donoghue then went on to present the popular current affairs programme 7 Days, which went on air in 1966 and ran for ten years.
His later work included the regional news and features programmes Next Stop in the 1970s and Ireland’s Eye (1980-83).