My Childhood with Katelyn Cummins: Mam, Grandad and TikTok tutorials taught me how to jive

“I’ve always loved dancing, I spent eight or nine years Irish dancing as a child”

Laois Rose and current Rose of Tralee Katelyn Cummins

Katelyn Cummins was worried about moving back home after competing in and winning this year’s Dancing with the Stars. The 21-year-old Rose of Tralee had moved to Dublin while training for and filming the show and thought it might be difficult to adjust to living with her parents and younger brother and sister again.

“But I needn’t have worried,” she says. “I settled back in immediately.”

Cummins has overwhelmingly positive memories of growing up on her family’s dairy farm on the Laois/Kilkenny border. The earliest one is her granny ringing her school to tell her that her brother Jack had been born. “I was in senior infants and I was overjoyed. I already had my sister Molly and now I had a brother too. I’d wanted one of each.”

The siblings were active children, always on the go. “We were the kind of kids who always had bruises and scabs on their knees from being out and about”.

They had lots of hobbies, too. Cummins was sporty and says she did athletics, and played soccer and camogie “from when I was old enough to hold a hurl”. She enjoyed Irish dancing, took speech and drama classes, going on to act local plays. She also found time for horse riding and even had her own horse for a few years.

Anyone observing her from a distance might not have realised that Cummins struggled with a hearing disability, having been diagnosed with profound to severe hearing loss at eight months old.

Katelyn Cummins was diagnosed with profound to severe hearing loss at 8 months old

In hindsight, she wonders if her disability is what drove her to have so many hobbies. “I felt insecure because of my difference and wanted to find a place to belong, somewhere I wouldn’t feel abnormal.”

Cummins’ hearing loss sometimes made it difficult for her to connect with others. “Little girls love singing songs and watching movies and I couldn’t always pick up song lyrics or follow movies that easily,” she says. “I often felt I couldn’t do things as well as the others.”

Her mother, Siobhán, who has impaired hearing, taught both Cummins and her sister, who also has a hearing disability, to advocate for themselves.

“Mam, Dad, and my grandparents always told me I could be good at whatever I put my mind to,” Cummins says. “My grandpaffffffffrents even encouraged me to read at Mass so I could practice public speaking. It’s thanks to all of them that I’m confident and able to stand up for myself now.”

Her secondary school guidance counsellor was another person who helped her overcome difficulties associated with her hearing loss. “I got teased for wearing hearing aids, and my guidance counsellor gave me a lot of support at that time,” she says. “Her belief in me is another of the reasons I am where I am today.”

Cummins wasn’t particularly academic and was unsure what path to follow after school. She recalls being at a loss as to what work experience to sign up for in transition year.

“I’d always helped out on the farm and was used to working with my hands. One morning, while out feeding calves, I told Dad I wasn’t sure I wanted to go to college, and he suggested I do an apprenticeship. I didn’t know what that was, but when he told me I’d be paid while I studied and could continue living at home while I did it, I started getting excited. I did work experience with a local electrician called JJ O’Sullivan and my heart was set on becoming an electrician after that.”

Katelyn Cummins helping out on her family farm

She was halfway through her four-year apprenticeship when she decided to try out for the Rose of Tralee.

While watching the show on TV in 2024, she remarked to her father, Noel, that she would love to take part someday. He saw an ad on Facebook a few days later and urged her to go for it.

She took little convincing. “I was in the middle of my apprenticeship and working with all lads,” she says. “I saw it as a way of fulfilling a childhood dream and making new female friends in the process.”

Cummins went on to win the competition and took a year out from her apprenticeship training so she could take full advantage of any opportunities that came her way.

One of these opportunities was competing in Dancing with the Stars.

“I’ve always loved dancing,” she says. “I spent eight or nine years Irish dancing as a child and would go céilí dancing with Mam as a teenager. I had a family wedding at one stage and wanted to jive at it, so Mam, Grandad and TikTok tutorials taught me how.”

She thinks it was her jiving party piece at the Rose of Tralee that earned her a place on Dancing with the Stars. She is so grateful it did.

2025 Rose of Tralee Katelyn Cummins. Picture: Domnick Walsh

“That show was the best thing I’ve ever done in my life,” she says. “It was intense but great fun learning how to dance properly and show emotions through movement. I don’t express my emotions enough, and dancing pushed me outside of my comfort zone.”

Cummins gives her parents most of the credit for helping her become the woman she is today.

“Mam is a hairdresser who works from home, and she’s always been so present for us, bringing us to training sessions and classes. Dad loves hurling and camogie and was always on the sidelines for our matches. Both are so supportive, and I can tell them anything.

“I know that if ever I needed them, they would be there for me at the drop of a hat. That’s why I should never have worried about moving back home. It’s always great being with Mam and Dad.”