Galway native has all the right answers

A Galway city native, forced to emigrate to find work during the eighties recession, has since built a lucrative career for himself as a “professional quizzer” – winning both Mastermind and the jackpot in Who Wants to be a Millionaire?!

And tonight Pat Gibson is set back on the box in a different guise, when he features on the UTV Ireland’s documentary series, Emigration Nation, which celebrates the lives of Irish emigrants.

Pat (55) was born in Galway before he and his family moved away to live in Letterkenny, Co Donegal, when he was just four. He returned to study civil engineering at NUIG when he was in his late teens.

It was here he met his wife, Shelagh, but they were forced to leave Ireland during the 1980’s in the midst of the recession.  The pair reside in Wigan, in the North West of England.

Pat has quite an impressive CV in terms of quizzing accomplishments, winning both Mastermind and the £1 million jackpot in Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

He became the fourth person to land the million pound prize – and the first to get there with two lifelines remaining.

His jackpot question was ‘Which of these is not one of the American triple crown horse races?’, where – with confirmation from his ‘phone-a-friend’ – he correctly answered the Arlington Million.

He is also a regular panellist on the BBC Television quiz show, Eggheads, where teams from all over England attempt to beat the “Eggheads” in a general knowledge team competition.

Pat initially became involved in quizzes in the 90’s when he joined a local quiz team in Wigan. He now has over 15 years of quiz experience under his belt and studies intensely on a daily basis usually for “around four or five hours.”

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.