ON October 15, 2007 the Fox Business Network was launched to 30 million homes with Irish American anchorman Connell McShane, 30, at the helm. A professional broadcaster since the day he graduated college, for McShane it was a high water mark in an already successful career and the thought of it still inspires him. But the high profile world of Fox is a world away from the little town of Kilcar, Co. Donegal where his father grew up, although McShane junior, a born and bred Long Islander, is glad to say he feels just as at home in the high pressure world of network news as he does walking the highlands of Ulster.A graduate of Fordham University with a bachelor degree in communication and media studies, before turning 30 McShane had already been named a finalist in both the New York Metro Achievement in Radio Awards and the New York State Associated Press Broadcasters' Association. "I got my start reporting sports at college, focusing on baseball and that kind of thing, and then eventually I switched over to news and one thing led to another and eventually I ended up in financial news," McShane said during a recent interview with the Irish Voice. "At first it was not something I knew a lot about - there was a definite learning curve - but I learned a lot about it day by day. Now I think its something I'll spend my career doing."Just don't ask him for a stock tip. Although he spends hours of every day talking to financial leaders and heads of industry, when it comes to playing the markets he's as cautious as the rest of us. "I don't want to get involved in the stocks that we cover," says McShane laughing. "For the most part I just have mutual funds in long term things for retirement and college. I don't trade at all. Anyone can tell you that very few people who play the stock market do it well. I'm just as happy talking about it and struggling with it as anyone else. I'm not a financial analyst by any means."McShane's home is in Stewart Manor, where he also grew up. He lives there with his wife Renee and children Jack, 7, Lucy, 4, and Caroline, 2. "My wife's Italian, not Irish, but other than that she's pretty good," he jokes.Prior to joining Fox Business Network, McShane worked at Bloomberg Television where he paid his dues as a young news reporter and anchor working on Evening Edition, On the Markets and Marketweek. The big stories in the first part of his career were the 2004 U.S. presidential election and, unforgettably, the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Says McShane "I was down at Ground Zero every day for months as a local radio reporter. I don't think I'll ever cover a story like that, with that many aspects to it, as long as I do this. I remember being struck by how many people showed up early in the morning on that day after the attacks because they didn't know where else to go." McShane was part of the first press tour of the site after the September attacks. He recalls that when his group turned the corner of Vesey Street at the corner of West Street they looked up at the mass of rubble, which was several stories high. Trying to describe it on the radio seemed next to impossible."Says McShane, "I also covered Wall Street the day it reopened. Seeing guys in their business suits standing next to national guardsmen in camouflage and wearing rifles was bizarre. We forget all that and sometimes I think its kind of useful to remember."For McShane his Irish ancestry is a fundamental and meaningful part of his identity. He first visited Donegal on summer vacations with his parents when he was a boy, but as he matured he started traveling across on his own."It's actually become a pretty big part of my life, Ireland. I spent a lot of summers there and I've a total of 43 cousins on my dad's side, and they all became very important to me, like semi-brothers and sisters because I'm an only child," said McShane."We'd spend time over there running around the local cliffs and whatnot, the typical things kids did in an Irish summer, and then when I was older it was running around the local pubs and trying not to fall in the streets."McShane feels he half grew up in Donegal, and now that his Irish cousins come here to visit him on Long Island, they've remained close and maintained that living connection to the old country. Wearing his anchorman hat, McShane is amazed by the changes wrought by Ireland's Celtic Tiger economy. "When I was younger my cousins wanted to come here to the U.S. But now I've noticed a big change of everybody being willing to stay home. In the last 10 years jobs have been available there - a lot of times from American companies like Intel and Apple, because corporate taxes there are so low. The country's done so well - they have a super educated workforce - and the fact that companies have time to set up and invest in human capital there is really impressive." McShane's own educational background is classic Irish American. "I've sixteen years of Catholic education and it's certainly left its mark," he says laughing. "Elementary school was with the Sisters of Mercy, I had the Franciscan Brothers in high school then four years of the Jesuits at Fordham. I blame just about everything on one of those groups. "At Fordham he admired WFUV's famous Irish show Ceol na nGael, which he almost worked for. "We talked about me hosting it in my senior year - my grandmother was a big fan - but I was doing sports at the time and I ended up staying with that."Fordham was where McShane decided he wanted to pursue broadcasting as a career. He was a natural on the radio and he excelled in play-by-play descriptions of the baseball games he was watching. When he switched to news reporting he found the skills he had picked up in sports essential, and he ended up with a job at Bloomberg straight out of college. At first he was working behind the scenes, taking in news feeds, writing and pestering his employers until they put him on the air. They gave him a trial shot at the weekends, where he built up his experience until they gave him a real shot. After five years on the radio he switched over seamlessly to television and then last year he joined the fledgling Fox Business Network. "We started from nothing. I've been at Bloomberg for eight years on radio and the television and this was just a great chance to start something from the ground up and we've built it from there," says McShane."It's been one of things where we've been riding the wave since October to now and it's been a lot of fun. Once you start it becomes fun doing it. It's actually like sports in a lot of ways. Like a big game." McShane is encouraged by the responses his new network is receiving. At a christening party he attended recently he got talking to a friend's father who told him the reason he watches our channel is because he understands it. "This man told me that the other business networks are just talking to the Wall Street guys. I told him he should make commercials for us because that's exactly what we're trying to do. It's great to hear that kind of feedback," says McShane."He watches during the day when I'm covering the markets and at night with Neil Cavuto and Dave Ramsey and he's really into it."McShane is interested in discovering how people of the top of their game got there and how they operate, to pick their brain about it, and not just analyze the numbers in regard to how their company is performing, what makes them tick. That's a distinct departure from regular network business coverage." With impressive audience figures right out of the starting gate, McShane is focused on doubling them. "Our audience will find us. We've just been on the air a few months. It will take a while to level that playing field between the more established business networks, and us but I'm certain we will. It will be great to recall that I was a part of it. One day I'll remind myself: October 15, 2007 - wow we've come a long way."