Here come the girls — to Thurles
THURLES is synonymous with hurling finals, not Top 40 hit songs. Yet, as the birthplace of Una Healy, north Tipperary now has pop credentials.
A bona fide pop princess, Healy is a bigger celebrity than fellow Thurlers Tony Ryan and Pat Shortt. Bigger than Mary Hanafin. She is the only Irish member of The Saturdays, the biggest girl band in the UK, and one half of a beautiful celebrity couple, alongside her fiance England rugby player Ben Foden. Una and Foden have been tabloid catnip since they hooked up in 2008, and the coverage intensified at the end of last year when she announced her pregnancy and he proposed with a Cartier ring. Four months on and the couple have welcomed a baby daughter, Aoife Belle, born last month, and weathered their first storm in the red-tops.
