Teen Toy Show harpist: 'Being diagnosed as deaf is the best thing to happen to me’

Úna Walsh was 7 when she began to learn the stringed instrument, but it wasn’t until she was 10 that she realised she had serious hearing issues

Harpist Úna Walsh from Wexford: Úna’s life changed when she was diagnosed with profound hearing loss at the age of 10

When Úna Walsh was five she saw a harpist on The Late Late Toy Show, and decided she wanted to play the harp. Her mother, Barbara, encouraged her to start with the fiddle. “She made a deal with me, and said, ‘If you stick to the fiddle for two years, when you turn seven, you can start the harp’. So that Christmas I got my first harp,” says Wexford girl Úna.

Years later, in 2021, Úna, now 17, got to play her harp on The Toy Show. “It was the experience of a lifetime,” she says.