Ciaran McCarthy

Ciaran McCarthy in Series 70...

Ciaran McCarthy was a contestant in Series 70 and 92. At the time of the former appearance, he was a Performing Arts/Creative Media Production student at Bedford College while also living in Bedford. But by the time of his second set of games, he was living/working in London. He is also an Apterite.

Appearances

Series 70

On his debut, which was believed to have been the first from a deaf contestant on Countdown, he had the great misfortune of running into eventual octochamp and series champion Mark Murray. His highly impressive debut score of 104, which was not enough to win after Murray spotted the crucial conundrum RENOVATED, still stands to this day as one of of the highest losing scores ever recorded in a heat game.

Series 92

After that rather unfortunate matchup, and with more time on Apterous under his belt, McCarthy returned just under 11.5 years later, and kicked off with a strong second debut against fellow Apterite Lju Lazarevic, despite it not being a century this time.

Appearances on other Quiz shows

Three years after his Series 70 apperance, he recorded ten shows for the BBC quiz show !mpossible, on the same episodes as Series 78 contestant Alyssa Critchley, with whom he would appear on Tenable on ITV on 21 September 2022, as part of the 'Buzz-in Buddies' team.

On 18 June 2023, he won £40,000 on Sitting on a Fortune.

ZoomDown

Before his second debut on Countdown in Series 92, he made his debut appearance in ZoomDown Series 5 in August 2025, winning four games and becoming the sixth tetrachamp of the series with 390 points. This secured him the seventh seed for the finals, but unfortunately his opponent, second seed MSR overpowered him to knock McCarthy out of the tournament with a still respectable final score of 72 points.

Episodes

#	Date	Type	Contestant 1	Score	Contestant 2	Presenters				Guest	Lex	Max
5904	14/04/2014	P	Mark Murray	120 – 104	Ciaran McCarthy	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Michael Whitehall	Susie Dent	137
8601	10/09/2025	P	Lju Lazarevic	39 – 96	Ciaran McCarthy	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Chris McCausland	Susie Dent	129
8602	11/09/2025	P	Ciaran McCarthy	87 – 67	Tom Sydenham	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Chris McCausland	Susie Dent	135
8603	12/09/2025	P	Ciaran McCarthy	105 – 75	Mark Baker	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Chris McCausland	Susie Dent	124
8604	15/09/2025	P	Ciaran McCarthy	112 – 33	Martyn Smith	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Shirley Ballas	Susie Dent	145