Irish celebrities remember the day they became fathers

With Father’s Day tomorrow, well-known faces look back with Vicki Notaro to their memories of the day they became dads.

TOM DUNNE

TOM DUNNE is a radio presenter on Today FM “I have two daughters. Eva is 9 and Skye is 7, and both have birthdays in July. I was in my mid-40s when Audrey became pregnant with Eva and I was more worried than anything else.

"We’d been trying for so long I had almost given up hope. I somehow expected there to be more bad news, but there wasn’t. It was incredible! It wasn’t until the safe arrival of Skye that I somehow relaxed. I was in the lift at Mount Carmel and a man asked “what did you have?” and I said “a little girl” and started to cry. I wonder who he was.

The first time I held Eva she was only about two hours old and the nurse was trying to get her to “latch”. I was looking on like a bystander. It was proving awkward so they asked Audrey to change position. At this point the nurse said “maybe the daddy might hold the baby”.

I looked around to see where he was and then realised it was me they were talking about. I couldn’t have been more awkward taking her. She was tiny, 6 lbs 7 oz! I was sure I’d drop her, because I’m naturally a little bit clumsy!

There was a ‘phoney’ fatherhood period when they were both still in hospital. I’d meet friends, drink beer and tell them fatherhood was easy. Then they came home. We were so naive. We went to bed the first night with just two little bottles of formula in a sock drawer.

Then at 2am I was running the little bottle under a hot tap. I feel I’ve been out of bed ever since. After that we slowly discovered everything: bottle warmers, muslin cloths, colic, reflux, the HSE, marital disharmony, sleeping on your feet, driving her around in the middle of the night so that she might sleep, and never being more than three feet from a box of tissues!

Our life changed beyond recognition. We used to nip into town on Sunday and shop and go for dinner and then head home with the shopping. These were days of leisure and wine glasses. Now if I am in a shop alone I’m just buying vegetables. We are never alone. I haven’t finished a sentence since July 2006. We are still adapting.

I remember getting my dad a World’s Best Dad mug for Father’s Day, and now I receive them. It sure makes you feel old. I look at the mug and wonder how long until I start drinking Complan.

My motto is to celebrate whenever you can so we try to do something on the day. My wife tends to buy me a quality tequila. There is a message there somewhere.”

JOHN MCGUIRE

JOHN MCGUIRE is an entrepreneur and television personality “My eldest son Finn is 17 months old, and he’s great craic. I never thought I’d be saying that about anyone so young, but from first thing in the morning until bedtime, bar a few huge breakdowns, he laughs and smiles all the time and it’s infectious.

The little one is only three months old, and is called John after his granddad and his dad to a lesser extent. My wife Karen (Koster) calls him KK and I sometimes call him Triple J!

I thought Finn looked really like me, but this lad is a little clone. He slept through the night recently which was huge, mainly for his mum as he prefers draught to the bottle, I supported this decision wholeheartedly and means I get away with a lot of the heavy lifting. Karen lets me sleep rather than waking me up to ‘help’ in support.

Finn, after some initial scepticism, has really warmed to his brother. One of the most beautiful sights is seeing Finn leaning in and giving him a hug and a kiss.

We ended up with Irish twins and it is great, the closeness in age will be brilliant for them as it was for me.

Finn likes the same kind of music as me, a bit of ACDC or early 90s hip-hop first thing in the morning sets us both up for the day. I drop him to crèche before work, which he loves bar the first three minutes.

He has a voracious appetite for books and I mean that literally, obviously he can’t read and actually eats the pages.

I was older than most when I first became a father at 41! I was ecstatic, excited and then just praying to the gods you get a healthy baby. Finn had the good grace to come into this earth at 3pm, so by 9 that night I was being sent home by Karen and hightailed it for a few drinks with my siblings and best friends. With the second one, you don’t have that luxury as you’re babysitting.

I got a bit of a shock by the colour of Finn when he came out. being honest, even though I saw the videotape on the pregnancy course.

Then I saw he had reddish hair and huge feet and hands — my little brother Mike is 6 foot 7 with red hair and size 14 feet so I was talking to the baby going, ‘Mike? Is that you?’”

KEITH WALSH

KEITH WALSH is one of the presenters on RTÉ 2fm’s Breakfast Republic “I have two amazing children, Anna Ruby, 13, and Finn who is 7. When people ask about the age gap between the two kids, I just whisper ‘prison sentence’... and leave it at that.

Anna is beautiful, tall, mannerly and headstrong. She likes playing football, makeup and fashion. Finn is handsome, blond and funny and likes anything dangerous like skateboarding.

I was 29 when I became a father for the first time.

I still remember holding Anna for the first time. She was only a few hours old and I was giving her her first bottle. I couldn’t get over the way she was sitting up so straight and drinking it like she was a few months old. She seemed like she had been around before.

Actually when she could talk but was still a very young age used to say things to me like ‘Dad I was your Granny when you were small’ which totally freaked me out!

I feel like I took to fatherhood like a duck to water. I’d two nieces before Anna came along, so I was good at the practical side of things. However, I still felt like I should be able to go to the pub at the weekends.

My wife was brilliant and realised straight away that her life had changed, it took me at least a year and a half to figure it all out. Thankfully she’s very forgiving and patient!

I get on well with my own Dad. I do feel guilty that I don’t spend more time with him these days but he always says, ‘you have your own family now son, you’re busy’.

We weren’t a very affectionate family when we were growing up but about 15 years ago my father made a concerted effort to hug his children, now it’s compulsory to hug when you arrive at the house which is very cool.

Father’s Day is a day to realise how lucky I am to have two healthy children. It must be very hard on fathers who have lost children and those who don’t have access to theirs. It’s also a day where you’re allowed to watch sport and drink beer!”