Aidan McCullen

Aidan McCullen

McCullen speaking at a Creative Commons Ireland event
Date of birth	(1977-01-05) 5 January 1977 (age 47)
Place of birth	Dublin, Ireland
Height	1.93 m (6 ft 4 in)
Weight	110 kg (17 st 5 lb)
School	Castleknock College
University	Trinity College Dublin
Rugby union career
Position(s) Back row Amateur team(s) Years Team Apps (Points) 1999–2001 Lansdowne () Senior career Years Team Apps (Points) 1998–1999 Dax () 2001–2005 Leinster 57 (30) 2005–2006 Toulouse 11 (0) 2006–2008 London Irish 14 (0) Correct as of 31 May 2008 International career Years Team Apps (Points) 1998 Ireland U21 2003 Ireland 1 (0) Correct as of 30 June 2003 National sevens team Years Team Comps 2001 Ireland 7s 1

Aidan McCullen (born 5 January 1977) is a businessman and retired Ireland national rugby union team player. He played as a back rower, principally at blindside flanker but also as an openside, no.8 and occasionally in the second row. He played for the Ireland national rugby sevens team in a number of competitions, including Hong Kong Sevens and the 2001 Rugby World Cup Sevens.

McCullen is married to former Miss Ireland model Niamh Redmond. They have two sons.^[1]

McCullen started playing rugby at Castleknock College after moving to Dublin from County Meath. McCullen played for Leinster at schools, and captained the Leinster under 19s and under 20s before representing Ireland at under 21 level.^[2]

In 1998, after playing for Ireland under-21s, he played a season for US Dax in that year's French first division before joining Lansdowne Football Club in the All-Ireland League.^[2]

McCullen then joined Leinster Rugby in 2001 as Ireland moved away from the All-Ireland League and towards the Celtic league. That season he also played for Ireland sevens in the 2001 Rugby World Cup Sevens. He had 60 caps for Leinster and gained an international 15s cap for the game between Ireland and Samoa on 20 June 2003.^[3] His international career was halted by injury, before he was signed by Toulouse. McCullen was in the starting Toulouse team, but his time at Toulouse was once again impacted by injury. He then joined London Irish until 2008. McCullen returned to Ireland and coached his club side Lansdowne back to division one as a forwards' player/coach.^[4]

For several years, McCullen commentated for Setanta Sports (now Eir Sports) covering the French Top 14, International games and schools rugby.^{[citation needed]}

McCullen set up and developed the digital infrastructure for the Communicorp Group.^{[citation needed]} As "head of digital at Communicorp",^[5] he promoted the concept of "Radio You Can Read", which was an iPad magazine for the radio station Newstalk 106–108.^[6]

McCullen was recruited by Ireland's national broadcaster RTÉ as "Head of Innovation Partnerships and Funding" in January 2016.^[7] As of 2017, McCullen was working with the "business think tank" Katawave.^[8]

As of 2021, he was presenting a weekly radio show called "The Innovation Show" which is published online,^[9] and broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 Extra on Saturday afternoons.^[10] In 2021, McCullen published the Amazon book "Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention for Individuals, Organisations and Life".^[11]

McCullen is a consultant,^[1] speaker,^[12] and lecturer in Trinity College Business School^[13] He is also a non-executive board director for National Broadband Ireland^[14] and The Rise Global Foundation^[15]

• ERC Rugby – Player profile (archived)
• lansdownerugby.com – 1st XV (archived)
• Aidan McCullen at ESPNscrum