Career
He was a student of Gort Community School before attending university where he received a Bachelor of Arts in English and Classics and a Diploma in Irish from the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG). He is the godson of Irish broadcaster Ger Canning. Mahon began his journalistic career with Flirt FM 101.3 as a breakfast show presenter while attending the National University of Ireland Galway.
Throughout his undergraduate studies he also wrote regularly to Sin Newspaper.
Mahon established Coal Records Limited in 2011 an independent record label for indie artists. James was a student at the University of Sheffield where he undertook a masters in broadcast journalism and is a blogger in the United Kingdom and Ireland in the areas of current affairs and sport.
Mahon"s journalistic work has appeared on the Huffington Post Cable News Network i-report, Allvoices.com, TheFirstPost.com, Digitaljournal.com TheChesterfieldPost.co.uk and Blottr.com and he writes weekly to his personal website. An interview with mother of controversial TvShack.net creator Richard O"Dwyer is one of the most viewed videos on his YouTube channel which attracts visitors from the United Kingdom, Ireland and United States of America. In late 2011 he was a guest on the Rony Robinson show on British Broadcasting Corporation Sheffield talking about his life so far and his experiences in Sheffield.
Mahon wrote weekly to the Newcastle United Football Blog and was a former United Kingdom football editor for Spanish sports magazine Vavel.
He has previously appeared as an online host for Forge television in Sheffield and presented a weekly radio show on Redroad FM in Rotherham. Mahon moved to the United States in late 2012 and spent time at East Tennessee Public Broadcasting Service in Knoxville before moving to Columbia Broadcasting System affiliate WDEF-television News 12 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Mahon is one of only a handful of Irish citizens to ever hold an on air position in American television and the first in the American South.
He hosts a lifestyle series called "Through Irish Eyes" and is currently a general assignment reporter.
During September 2013 Mahon"s legal status to keep working in the United States was pending. In 2015 Mahon featured as an International correspondent and reporter for Raidio Na Gaeltachta and Raidió Teilifís Éireann World Report.
In autumn of the same year he left the United States returning to Ireland continuing with radio reporting and presenting. In 2016 he made the move into academia as a journalism lecturer at the University of the West of Scotland.
His first book Through Irish Eyes is due out summer of 2016 with Book Hub Publishing in Ireland.
