It really is the most magical time of the year. For the lucky among us who get to spend it with loved ones, and kids, the excitement is palpable. The wonderment at Santa coming, opening pressies and staying in your jammies all day. For parents, though, it can be exhausting and stressful too: combine very early wake-ups with present-buying, tipsy family members, over-tired kids, and hangovers…. […]

10 years ago

Storm Keating announced yesterday that she is expecting her first baby with husband Ronan.   The 35-year-old Australian television producer married the ex-Boyzone star in August 2015 and has revealed that the baby was conceived on their wedding anniversary. It will be a fourth child for Ronan, 39, who is already dad to Jack, 17, Missy, […]

10 years ago

Do you have a wild stallion at home who you’d like to saddle up for Christmas? The creators of Pony Up Daddy say that this, er…human saddle…is the fun new way for parents and grandparents to give pony rides like never before! Quite. Pony Up Daddy, the winner of The National Parenting Centre’s ‘Seal of Approval’, is […]

10 years ago

Newly-crowned queen of the jungle Scarlett Moffatt has revealed exactly how she plans to spend her expected £1million windfall from tv deals and endorsements. The 26-year-old Gogglebox star from Durham beat Emmerdale actor Adam Thomas and comedian Joel Dommett to the jungle throne, by winning I’m A Celebrity at the weekend. The down-to-earth northern lass, who recently […]

10 years ago

Singer Paloma Faith has taken to Instagram to share her joy at becoming a first-time mum. The former The Voice mentor wrote that she underwent an emergency Caesarean after a difficult labour and expressed her thanks to the hospital staff. Paloma went on to praise the UK’s NHS as one of the country’s greatest achievements: “After a difficult labour […]

10 years ago

Australian über-blogger and mum-of-four Constance Hall is postponing her much anticipated UK and Ireland tour.  The 33-year-old artist and parenting blogger from Perth, Australia, took to her Facebook page yesterday to say that both she and the family are too exhausted for the trip to go ahead as planned. Since launching her Facebook page in 2015 and […]

10 years ago

A US judge has sentenced Justin Ross Harris to life in prison without parole for the death of  his 22-month-old son Cooper, who died after being left in a hot SUV in June 2014. Last month, a jury convicted Harris of malice and felony murder and other charges for intentionally leaving little Cooper in the […]

10 years ago

Do you remember how Closer Online revealed the names of the women most likely to fall pregnant in 2016? Well, they’ve done it all over again for 2017. How they worked it out was they looked at the average age that a woman gives birth to her first child in the UK – this was […]

10 years ago

“My body was completely broken, but I didn’t realise I would never see him again.” These are the words of Gillian Treacy, mother of four year old Ciarán who was killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver in April 2014. Gillian’s story and that of her husband Ronan, the Emergency Services who attended […]

10 years ago

Ho, Ho, Ho! What has Aunty Ali gotten you for Christmas? A bountiful array of festive telly delights that’s what! You lucky duckies. We all know the true meaning of Christmas. That’s right, watching television. This year’s Christmas line-up will have you glued to the sofa just like the Royle Family. Highlights include Mary, Paul, […]

10 years ago

The stars of Sky’s 50 Ways To Kill Your Mammy, Baz and Nancy Ashmawy, have just revealed the locations for Cadbury Chocolate’s ‘Cadvent Convoy’. Ireland’s favourite mother and son duo today revealed the chosen route for the chocolate-filled Christmas truck, following two weeks of public voting. Kicking off today with a large launch event in Grand Canal Dock […]

10 years ago

Ben Carter will only drink from a specific blue Tommee Tippee cup, but the particular style went out of production twenty years ago, so Dad Marc looked to social media for help. To most people, it’s just an everyday child’s sippy cup, but for 14-year-old Ben Carter from Devon in the UK, it is the […]

10 years ago

Prepare yourselves because American cable and satellite television channel Lifetime have just released the official trailer for their remake of 80’s weepy Beaches. Grammy Award winner Idina Menzel, who voiced Frozen‘s Elsa and the song that just won’t Let It Go, plays CC Bloom, the role made famous in 1988 by Bette Midler. Coincidentally, Wind Beneath My Wings […]

10 years ago

Santa’s reindeer have got themselves a Christmas nixer this year. A Domino’s Pizza branch in Japan plans to deliver pizza by reindeer in preparation for expected snowy conditions. As with the company’s ordinary delivery bikes, the reindeer will be equipped with a GPS driver-tracker device that can check the delivery status in real time. Training is now […]

10 years ago

A UCD student has told gardai that she was the victim of a sexual assault at UCD’s Belfield campus last Thursday.  It is believed the student in question had been out socialising with her friends on the day the alleged assault took place. The matter is now being investigated by the Donnybrook gardai; however no suspect has […]

10 years ago

One of the two hotel employees acquitted of the murder of Michaela McAreavey in Mauritius is seeking damages of almost 75 million Mauritian rupees (almost €2m) for his treatment while in custody. Michaela McAreavey née Harte was found strangled in the bath of her hotel room while on honeymoon in Mauritius in January 2011. The […]

10 years ago

There is nothing as special as opening a handmade card, and nothing as fun (and chaotic) as making them from scratch with the kids. If you don’t mind a little messiness, getting stuck into an afternoon of creativity will really get everyone in the festive mood. And we all know kids love to do a spot of […]

10 years ago

Ratings-winning drama Call the Midwife is to have three more series that will keep the show on BBC One until 2020. Three Christmas specials have also been commissioned. Yay, yay and yay! A sixth series of the show, about nuns and midwives working in London’s East End, has already been announced and will air in early […]

10 years ago

Cystic Fibrosis Ireland have vowed to fight the HSE’s decision to turn down the ground-breaking CF drug Orkambi and have called for Health Minister Simon Harris to intervene. Cystic Fibrosis Ireland, Ireland’s national charity supporting people with CF, have expressed their dismay and opposition to the news – leaked yesterday to a Sunday newspaper – […]

10 years ago

The winter has well and truly arrived and let’s face it, Irish winters tend to be colder than most. But it’s not that we’re not prepared. In fact, we’re over-prepared and have everything one could possibly need for the coming months. Here are ten things that you’ll find in every Irish home this winter… 1. Briquettes If […]

10 years ago

Australia’s Health Minister, Jill Hennessy, has confirmed the death of a sixth person after an outbreak of ‘thunderstorm asthma’ in Melbourne. The city’s Herald Sun reports that the outbreak has left five patients in intensive care, with three listed as critical. Another twelve people are receiving hospital treatment for “a variety of respiratory and other related conditions” after asthma […]

10 years ago

The heartbroken parents  of four-year-old Ciarán Treacy have shared their tragic story on RTE’s Ray D’Arcy Show. The heartbroken parents of four-year-old Ciarán Treacy have shared their tragic story on RTE’s Ray D’Arcy Show. Gillian and Ronan Treacy, who are preparing to front this year’s Road Safety Authority Christmas campaign, spoke about the tragic circumstances in which they lost […]

10 years ago

Katie Taylor outclassed her opponent Karina Kopinska in her professional boxing debut yesterday at the Wembley Arena in London. The five-time world and 2012 Olympic champion won the fight with a third-round stoppage of Kopinska. Katie’s next fight is scheduled for the 10th of December and hopes are high that the Irish champion could challenge for a […]

10 years ago

The woman known to many of us as Carol Brady, actress Florence Henderson, has died at the age of 82. Florence was hospitalised on Wednesday and passed away after suffering heart failure on Thursday night at LA’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre, her publicist David Brokaw and manager Kayla Pressman announced. They said the Brady Bunch star died surrounded […]

10 years ago

A new study conducted by iPass, surveyed 1,700 working professionals across Europe and the US and found that 40 percent of respondents think Wi-Fi is more important than sex, chocolate or alcohol. The researchers say that Wi-Fi is now not only the most popular method of internet connectivity, but has surpassed many other human luxuries and necessities and […]

10 years ago

A sad day for those of us who grew up with Bosco, Zig and Zag, Judge, Fortycoats, Mr. Crow and the gang from Wanderly Wagon. RTÉ have announced their plans to outsource their young people’s programming, meaning that all of the national broadcaster’s RTÉjr and RTÉ2 children’s television will now come from independent production companies. A statement from […]

10 years ago

Need a hand with your Christmas shopping? Whether we care to admit it or not Christmas is just around the corner. As the decorations start going up and the festive music starts to creep into the shops, it’s time we started ticking a few things off our Christmas lists and our latest competition could give you […]

10 years ago

Peter Andre and his wife Emily MacDonagh have had their second child together, a baby boy. Emily, a junior doctor and singer Peter are already mum and dad to two-year-old Amelia. Announcing the news on Twitter, Andre joked that they would try to name the baby in under six weeks this time: Very very happy for our […]

10 years ago

When a hectic day is drawing to a close, it can be difficult to switch off any lingering worries or stress before you hit the hay.  But there are some clever ways to get your zen back before lights out; all you need is a little determination to blitz those thoughts that bother you before bedtime. Here […]

10 years ago

The Southeast Asian nation has become the latest country to make commercial surrogacy illegal after bans on the practice in other parts of the world sparked a boom in Cambodia’s unregulated baby business. Surrogacy agencies began popping up in the small country after former surrogacy hotspots such as Thailand and India banned foreigners from the services following […]

10 years ago

Santa paid an early visit to plasterer Jay Clark, his girlfriend Caroline Donoghue, and their ten-month-old Maxie this year – because the terminally ill dad was worried he would not live to see his son’s first Christmas. 41-year-old Jay, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in October last year, and his partner Caroline, 37, had lost all hope […]

10 years ago

The Santa Forgot campaign imagines a world where the magic of Christmas has been lost because Santa is living with the effects of dementia and can no longer visit children across the world. Alzheimer’s Research in the UK has launched a touching new Christmas advert that will definitely pull at your heart strings. Narrated by Stephen Fry, the tear-jerking […]

10 years ago

Oscar-winner Glen Hansard has teamed up with The High Hopes Choir to highlight the human faces behind the country’s homeless crisis. The Commitments and Once star paid a special visit to Focus Ireland’s coffee shop in Dublin’s Temple Bar to hear some of the human stories behind the homeless crisis. His visit comes as latest figures […]

10 years ago

“For the first few weeks, she was a very sunny little baby, feeding and sleeping quite easily. We felt so lucky. But now she’s like a different child. She cries so much, most of all in the evening, and nothing I do seems to console her. She really seems to be in such pain, it […]

10 years ago

Dublin singer Imelda May’s time as the queen of rockabilly has come to an end. The single mum-of-one has a whole new look and it has to be said she is lookin’ fierce well altogether! Imelda has wiped the slate clean after going through a tough split from her former guitarist Darrel Higham. The star thanked Dublin hairdresser […]

10 years ago

Everything is awesome! The world’s largest lego store has opened in central London’s Leicester Square. I have three lego nuts at home, who love the blocks and the movie, who would be saucer-eyed at the Danish shop’s new flagship shop. Now the largest lego shop in the world, it boasts exciting new experiences, such as […]

10 years ago

Chocolate cheese is an actual thing now and all my food group dreams have come true. Australian cheesemongers Curds & Whey who have a stall at the Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne, have just produced ‘Choco 21’ and, I think we can safely say, just won food. The creators describe the delicious concoction as an Italian blue cheese […]

10 years ago

Channel 4’s ‘The Secret Life of Four Year Olds‘ is churning out some of the best tv moments of 2016. If you haven’t seen the brilliant documentary series yet (how? why not!?) then you have missed some of the funniest, not to mention cute, insights into the complex world of the under-fives. Having an almost-four […]

10 years ago

Four-year-old Jessica Whelan, pictured above in a heartbreaking photo taken by her dad Andy, has sadly died. Brave Jessica, who was diagnosed with high-risk stage four neuroblastoma in September 2015, passed away early this morning. Her heartbroken father made the announcement on his Facebook page, writing: “I feel both sadness and relief in informing you […]

10 years ago

With movies such as The Hangover and cheap flights to infamous party cities, the stag party has become an increasingly extravagant and popular phenomenon. But a new study says that many fellas don’t enjoy the parties and just want to go home. Bless! Daniel Briggs, a professor of criminology at Madrid University, and his colleague […]

10 years ago

Today marks UN Universal Children’s Day but what is being done to lift Ireland’s poorest children out of poverty? One Family – Ireland’s organisation for people parenting alone, sharing parenting, and separating – have voiced their concerns on the inequality that exists in Irish society for the one in nine (11 percent) children who live in consistent […]

10 years ago

Singer Adele, with a personal fortune estimated at a mind-blowing £92 million, is reportedly planning a simple registry office wedding. The Londoner was introduced to her partner of five years, Simon Konecki, by Ed Sheeran and the happy couple have a four-year-old son named Angelo. Simon is also dad to a nine-year-old daughter from a previous relationship. Simon, […]

10 years ago

Good news if you are over forty and feeling exhausted at work. Apart from the fact that you are twice as much fun as a twenty year old, research by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research has shown that working more than thirty hours a week is detrimental for this age group. It was […]

10 years ago

A fourteen-year-old girl had her final wish to be frozen instead of buried after her death granted by a judge. The young girl, known only as JS, was suffering from a rare form of cancer and died on October 17th. In what is thought to be the first case of its kind in the UK (and […]

10 years ago

A row has erupted between Human Rights Commissioner Emily Logan and Education Minister Richard Bruton over school admission rules. Mr Bruton introduced new legislation to the Dáil yesterday that would preserve an entitlement for schools to hold about 25 percent of their places for sons or daughters of past pupils. But Commissioner Logan has told […]

10 years ago

In Co Down, a two-year-old cockapoo (cocker spaniel/poodle cross) called Teddy has been declared a hero after she saved five-year-old Riley Duffy from an active tumble dryer. Riley, who has Down Syndrome, locked himself inside the dryer while his mum was hoovering. Teddy, immediately sensing danger, began to bark loudly causing mum Gillian to rush downstairs to find […]

10 years ago

Twenty-year-old student nurse Becky Topping from Antrim has been hailed a hero after saving a toddler’s life on Sunday. Becky had nipped out for something to eat with a friend whens she witnessed the young boy turning purple as his mum struggled to get him out of his buggy. She told Belfast Live what happened: “My […]

10 years ago

Searching for a baby name?  When it comes to deciding whether your little offspring will be honoured with an old-fashioned name (Rosie, Emily, Arthur), a hipster name (Xavier, Harper, Flynn) or maybe a good solid name (James, Sarah, David), chances are you and your partner will not agree on every single one. So, for anyone due a […]

10 years ago

A huge earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 and depth of 16km has struck the Canterbury region of New Zealand.  Damage has been reported in locations across the country and the quake was strongest in Christchurch, Wellington, Nelson, Marlborough, Taranaki, Hamilton and Auckland. The earthquake occurred just after midnight and the country’s Civil Defence […]

10 years ago

Missing Callan woman Jo Jo (Josephine) Dullard is to be remembered at a ceremony in Kilkenny Castle this afternoon. The 21-year-old went missing 21 years ago on the 9th of November while travelling home from Dublin. She was last seen making a phonecall from a phonebox in Moone, Co Kildare. A short time later a […]

10 years ago