Ciaran McCarthy

Ciaran McCarthy octochamp statistics
Final position	Quarter-finalist
Seeding	4
Points total	842
Conundrums solved	6

Ciaran McCarthy in Series 70...

...and 11 years later in Series 92.

Ciaran McCarthy was a contestant in Series 70, and an octochamp and quarter-finalist in Series 92. At the time of his 2014 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

Heat games

After that rather unfortunate matchup and with more time on Apterous behind him, McCarthy returned nearly 11.5 years later and kicked off with a strong second debut against fellow Apterite Lju Lazarevic. He followed that up with seven further victories, which included five centuries among them. He managed to spot six nine-letter-words in his heats which was more than any other contestant in the series; those being UNGODLIER, ANTISERUM, DEROGATES, LIMESTONE, QUANTILES and DREAMIEST. The fourth one actually was revealed to be a substitute as McCarthy originally spotted the also valid MOLESTING, which had to be cut from the broadcast with one of the letters being changed in the edit.

Ciaran also stood out by his devotion to a three-large numbers round pick every time he was asked, and his conundrum solves were more often than not very speedy throughout his heats. After his eighth victory which saw him rack up a personal best of 124, McCarthy confirmed his octochampdom and membership of the 800 club with a final tally of 842, which was good enough for the third seed at the time just ahead of John Payne. Rachel then christened Ciaran "The Omen" as a final-send off to mark his achievements on the show to date.

Finals

Ciaran eventually qualified as the fourth seed for the finals, and was drawn against No. 5 seed John Payne. The match turned out to be a rather scrappy affair; despite McCarthy taking an early lead with GORINESS, and the excellent spot of the darrenic TAUTOMER later on, they were cancelled out by two numbers round misfires and other errors which gave Payne a 13-point lead going into the final numbers game. A relatively easy target despite the four-large pick officially ended McCarthy’s run for a second time, although he did finish with a flourish by spotting YELLOWFIN from LOWLYFINE, with the final score of 79 being his lowest to date. He finished with a total of 921 points from his Series 92 games to add to the 104 scored back in Series 70.

Appearances on other Quiz shows

Three years after his Series 70 appearance, 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 return 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
8605	16/09/2025	P	Ciaran McCarthy	112 – 63	Kay Shrubb	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Shirley Ballas	Susie Dent	140
8606	17/09/2025	P	Ciaran McCarthy	99 – 65	Gaurav Kamath	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Shirley Ballas	Susie Dent	130
8607	18/09/2025	P	Ciaran McCarthy	107 – 37	Mick Jary	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Shirley Ballas	Susie Dent	143
8608	19/09/2025	P	Ciaran McCarthy	124 – 57	Paul Bainbridge	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Shirley Ballas	Susie Dent	154
8670	16/12/2025	QF	Ciaran McCarthy	79 – 82	John Payne	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Christopher Biggins	Susie Dent	135