He was awarded the title "Journalist of the Year" in 2016,[2] having won acclaim for his work in exposing the smear campaign against Irish police whistleblower Maurice McCabe by senior members of the Garda Síochána.
[3] In 2014, TV3's Tonight with Vincent Browne named him "Journalist of the Year" for his work on the McCabe story.
When Vincent Browne retired from his popular current affairs television programme in 2017, Clifford was tipped as one of his most likely successors.
[7] Clifford has written four books; the non-fiction Bertie Ahern and the Drumcondra Mafia (2012, with Shane Coleman),[8] A Force for Justice: The Maurice McCabe Story (2018), and two crime novels; Ghost Town was published in 2012.
Clifford attended Presentation Brothers College, Cork for the final two years of his schooling.