Education
He then studied German and French at Queen"s University, Belfast.
He then studied German and French at Queen"s University, Belfast.
He is best known as the chief football commentator for Raidió Teilifís Éireann, for which he also commentates on other sporting events, such as the Olympic Games. He presents a classical music program on Raidió Teilifís Éireann lyric fm called The Hamilton Scores. While a student at Methodist College, Belfast, Hamilton was, for a time, principal cellist with the school orchestra.
Hamilton began his commentary career with British Broadcasting Corporation Sport, before joining RTÉ eight years later in 1984.
He had previously worked for Raidió Teilifís Éireann during the 1978. Since 2003, he has worked for RTÉ lyric fm (Ireland"s classical radio station) on Saturday mornings.
Foreign many years, he fronted a popular weekly quiz show on RTÉ, Know Your Sport, alongside fellow commentator Jimmy Magee. Hamilton was RTÉ"s chief commentator at Euro 2012, and commentated on all of Ireland"s matches in the competition.
He has been involved in the coverage of the Olympic Games since Moscow Olympics in 1980.
Hamilton is known for his use of colourful phrases and memorable quotes when commentating on games – his phrase describing David O"Leary"s penalty against Romania in the 1990 World Cup, "The nation holds its breath", was used for a book of Irish soccer quotations, compiled by Eoin Corry, for which Hamilton wrote the foreword. The sports humour website, DangerHere.com, takes its title from another quote by Hamilton: "And Bonner has gone 165 minutes of these championships without conceding a goal. Oh danger here.." Other examples "Real Madrid are like a rabbit in the glare of the headlights in the face of Manchester United"s attacks.
But this rabbit comes with a suit of armour in the shape of two precious away goals" "And Ireland have got to contain the brothers Baggio." "The Baggio brothers, of course, are not related" "When I said they"d scored two goals, of course I meant they"d scored one" On 16 August 2011, he felt unwell and had a suspected heart attack, and later had several hours of emergency bypass surgery at the Blackrock Clinic in Dublin after being transferred from Saint Vincent"s University Hospital.
He recovered, and resumed both his commentating and radio show.