Five Late Late Show talking points from Valentine's special
Friday's Late Late Show guests: Una Healy, Tom Allen, and PJ Kirby and Kevin Twomey. Picture: Late Late Show/X
The show opened with ex-Ulster and Ireland international Andrew Trimble, who went into detail about a "bromance" with his fellow coach Donncha O'Callaghan.
"Donncha has my heart!" he told Paddy.
"We once got dropped by Declan Kidney for a game in Rome and then we looked at each other, we thought, well, that's a city break.
"We did everything. We did the open top bus tour. We visited the Coliseum, the Spanish Steps. We had a brilliant time."
Trimble also explained how post-retirement, he still has an itch to scratch.
"You never lose the competitiveness. Like even in the last week, I found myself even just watching the Winter Olympics, watching the skeleton, thinking, I could do a job here. I could do that. That's tobogganing dressed up as Daft Punk."
Off the back of appearing on on Netflix, Una Healy made her return to the Late Late.
Almost immediately, the prospect of a Saturdays reunion was put forward - and there was no major denial of it from Una!.
She teased: "We always said that if we ever come back and do something together, we want it to be all five. So it hopefully will be.
"It's like we were living the dream, being in a girl band. It was like a dream come true, you know. I loved every minute of it, but I'm still flying the Saturday's flag, because I do lots of gigs. I do lots of Pride gigs and playing LGBTQ+ bars."
It wasn't the only thing she was teasing though, as the Tipperary performer announced a new search for an up-and-coming country sensation.Â
"We are looking for someone out there you might be watching tonight, or you might know someone at home who's a great singer, who wants to perform, wants to be an artist, but just hasn't had the opportunity to have the platform to really get it out there.
"We're looking for Ireland's next big country star."
The winner of the Late Late Opening Act will be announced in April - with the person opening up on the later in 2026.
English comedian Tom Allen had the audience in stitches and Paddy struggling to keep his composure, particularly with stories from his youth and how he grew up knowing he was 'a bit camp.'
He explained: "I would get lost deliberately in the supermarket, just so I could hear my name being called out.Â
"I was always getting lost in the supermarket. My mum would figure it out. 'He's probably gone over to see Brenda on Customer Services. She always gives him a good shout out.' And I was seven years old!"
His upcoming West End musical sees him tread the boards with Celine Dion.
"It's joke after joke after joke. It's a retelling of the Titanic story, as though Celine Dion was actually on board the ship. And it's sort of told as though Celine Dion is kind of like bonkers."
He also opened up on his reasoning behind starting his podcast from his back garden.
He explained: "The thing is, I just think, you know, the news is so stressful or so wound up all the time. I wanted to provide a bit of peace and calm in amongst all the craziness, so I thought I'll do a podcast from my garden, and hopefully people enjoy it as much as I do."
Tom stuck around for the final guests of the evening, as Cork's favourite podcast pairing rocked up in the form of PJ Kirby and Kevin Twomey.
It didn't take long for the trio to rechristen it the Late Late Gay Show - with Paddy playing along as Gay Byrne.
Naturally, their mammies were brought up and PJ revealed a special service that his mother now gets on a Sunday morning.
"She loves Mass. Sunday is her favorite day, and she goes to Mass but when she can't go, when she can't go to Mass because, like, she's sick or something, she watches it. She streams it. She's okay with the old streaming of mass, but then she's like, she misses the hit of communion..
"If you're the priest in Clogheen, thank you, because the last time she was in mass, he was like, take my number if you need communion, give me a WhatsApp and I'll pop it down. Yeah. Deliveroo for communion."
