Published: Tuesday, 24th March, 2009 2:00pm

Mullingar woman on new "Apprentice" show

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Lorraine Tighe.

When Sir Alan Sugar meets the fifteen candidates vying for a job in his company in the hugely popular t.v. show 'The Apprentice', among them will be a Mullingar woman, Lorraine Tighe.

The Kent-based sales executive was one of 30,000 who applied for places in this year"s show, and went through twelve separate interviews before making it to qualify.

She is one of the fifteen to take part in the series, which begins tomorrow night, Wednesday, on BBC 1 at 9 p.m.

Lorraine, although she grew up in Westmeath, was born in London, but when she was six, her parents, Rathowen-born James Tighe, and his Streete-born wife, Loretto (nee Coffey) (now living in Petitswood), moved back to Ireland, and Lorraine attended Rathowen N.S., before going on to attend the Loreto College in Mullingar.

'We"re all so excited for her,' said Lorraine"s cousin, Fiona Coffey, this week, pointing out that there will be support in Streete and Rathowen, as well as in Mullingar, where Lorraine"s brother, Darren, also lives.

The blurb surrounding the show states that Lorraine left school at 16, and worked her way up to the top of the sales game, but that"s only part of the story.

'When she was 16, she was offered an opportunity in the UK, and took it, and she"s been living in the UK since then.

But she went back to school in England and got her degree,' says Fiona.

Since then, according to the BBC, in its publicity for the show, 'she has gone on to be the top sales person in every company she has ever worked for'.

In fact, reveals Fiona, Lorraine had to give up her job to take part in The Apprentice. 'She had a top marketing job, an excellent job, with one of the biggest drainage companies in the UK, and she a nation accounts manager with them, and when she got accepted into The Apprentice, she just had to give it up, as the series lasts for twelve weeks.'

Lorraine, who is a mother of two girls aged 4 and 9, comes back to Mullingar five or six times a year, and still has a huge number of friends locally.

Lorraine describes herself as 'extremely driven'. Not alone was she in a top role in the company she has just left, but she runs her own property company.

Her aim in business is, she says, 'to be able to drive a dead horse to the winning line'.