About

Mal Rogers is an award-winning journalist, travel writer and columnist from County Down. He was brought up in Tollymore Forest — today, scene of much of the filming of Game of Thrones.

 At an early age Mal wanted to run away to the big city, but sadly, there wasn't one in Northern Ireland. So instead he headed for Belfast and there enrolled at Queen’s University Belfast to study botany.

This was at the height of the Troubles in Ulster, with civil strife and sectarian violence an everyday occurrence. Mal decided to capitalise on this turn of events, so alongside learning the intricacies of photosynthesis and transpiration, he began to report for national newspapers on any riots or gunfights taking place locally.

From these beginnings, his journalistic career flourished — while, sadly, his march to the top of the botanical tree faltered. He did however leave university with a BSc (pass degree, naturally), a load of journalistic contacts, and a grounding in Irish music. He still plays fiddle, mandolin and uilleann pipes. He reckons he might get a 2.1 in fiddling; a lesser grade in piping.

Mal’s journalistic career has flourished, however. He writes for publications as diverse as the Daily Mail, BBC Wildlife and the Irish Times.

In January, 2018, Mal won the Travel Extra Travel Journalist of the Year for a body of work that had appeared throughout 2017. He was also category winner in the Digital Journalist of the Year section.

In 2016, Mal won the Northern Ireland Travel Writer of the Year Award.

In 2014 he won the Irish Travel Journalist of the Year Spain Award, a prize he also won in 2013. This was for articles on Spain in the Irish Post, Irish Times, Cara (Aer Lingus magazine) and the Belfast Telegraph.

For travel articles in the Irish Times, Mal won the Northern Ireland Travel Journalist of the Year Award (2010), the Irish Travel Writer of the Year Award in the skiing section (2009), the Irish Travel Journalist of the Year Award for long distance travel (2008).

Also in 2009 he was nominated as one of the top 50 travel writers in the UK by the Press Gazette, while the previous year his Guide to Northern Ireland (Crimson Press) won the Guide Book of the Year Award from the British Guild of Travel Writers. In 2004 he won the Swedish Travel Writer of the Year Award – and just to complete the bragging, in 2008 and 2009 he won the competition to write the main market book for Tourism Ireland. He continues to work for the body.

Mal was editor of the Irish Post, the London-based newspaper which serves the Irish community in Britain, until the end of 2011, when he relinquished the position to concentrate on travel writing.

He continues to write a column for the paper.

Telephone: 00 44 77532 26877

email: malrgrs@googlemail.com