My childhood with Laura Fox: 'I didn't have an ounce of shyness in me growing up'

The radio and TV presenter on how she regards herself as 'a Galway girl' and how it took a while to figure out what she wanted

Tue, 26 May, 2026 - 02:00

Sharon Ní Chonchúir

LAURA Fox spoke to the Irish Examiner just days after marrying her husband Brian Moran in an intimate wedding ceremony in Dublin City Hall. What had initially been planned as the legal precursor to a full-blown celebration in Italy this summer turned into what she describes as “a gorgeous day with close family and friends”.

Despite being an only child until the age of seven, the 35-year-old TV and radio presenter who co-presented this year’s Dancing with the Stars and currently hosts Ireland’s Fittest Family and 2FM’s Drive with Laura and Katja has always had a life full of people.

“Mam had me when she was 19 and raised me as a single mother until she married and had Jack, Adam, and Heather seven, 10, and 11 years later,” says Fox.

“In those early years, we shared a house with her friend Catherine and her daughter, Karen, who was my age. The four of us were always together, and Karen was my best friend for the first few years of my life. The two of us even started school together.”

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Fox was also close to her mother’s younger brothers. She and her mother Carmel lived in Galway city and her grandparents lived in the nearby village of Moycullen. They had 11 children and the youngest was only five years older than Fox. “My uncles and aunts were always there for me,” she says.

One of Fox’s earliest memories involves her uncle Trevor. She says: “He was obsessed with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He had a towel with the turtles on it that he loved, and I puked on it when I was about three years old. Mam washed it but he wouldn’t take it back. I still have it.”

Fox remembers being a carefree child who loved animals: “I was also a born performer. I didn’t have an ounce of shyness in me and would put on shows for family, friends, and neighbours whether they liked it or not.”

She loved living in Galway and still regards herself as “a Galway girl”.

There was a two-year period when she and her mother lived in Naas and Fox says she “prayed to God every night for one of two things. Either we would move back to Galway or I would get to meet the Spice Girls.

"When mam told me we were going back to Galway, my hopes for meeting the Spice Girls were dashed.”

After Fox’s mother married and the family started to grow, they moved to the village of Moylough in Co Galway, where Fox made many friends.

“We’d hang out all day,” she says. “We’d be out on the green playing football, soccer or camogie. I wasn’t the best at sport, but I enjoyed the craic of it, and it was a way of spending more time with my friends.”

Sport played a big part in her social life right through her teenage years but gradually, discos and nights out became important too.

“My friends and I loved our nights out,” she says. “But the best part was getting ready. Discos would start at 9pm and we’d start getting ready from 2pm.

"We’d be lathering on the fake tan and doing each other’s make-up while listening to whatever new CD someone had. Whenever I hear songs like Come With Me by Special D, I’m right back in a bedroom with my friends.”

Fox did not excel at school. She puts it down to her “non-existent attention span”. Her mother worried about her grades but Fox says that she herself was “a glass half full type of person. I’d tell mam it would all work out in the end, and thankfully, it has”.

Fox suspects that one reason it did so is that she inherited a strong work ethic from her mother. “Mam always worked hard,” she says.

“She used to be a physio’s aide. Then, when my brothers and sister were born, she became a stay-at-home mam and when they got bigger, she ran a childminding service from her home. I learned from her the importance of working to get what you want.”

However, it took Fox a while to figure out what she wanted. She got enough points in her Leaving Certificate to study science but says: “I don’t know why I put science on the CAO form. I wasn’t any good at it.”

When she decided against studying science, her mother signed her up for a secretarial course in Galway. “It was 2008, I was 17, and I moved into the city to study for the part-time course, while working in bars and restaurants to make money,” she says.

Laura Fox (right) and childhood best friend Karen on their first day at school in 1995.

“I was thrilled to have a job, my own place and my own money.”

She lived and worked in bars in London for a while in her early 20s before returning to Galway once again. That was when she began pursuing work in the media.

She says she had “always loved” radio. “My friends and I would listen to Love Hour on Galway Bay FM on Sunday nights. I could never believe that talking on the radio was someone’s job, that they actually got paid for it.”

She applied for and got an unpaid internship at Galway Bay FM, and from there she worked hard and “annoyed people” to give her opportunities before finally finding a pathway into radio and then TV.

“I think it comes back to the lesson I learned from my Mam. Work hard and dig in. Nothing will be handed to you.”