'I got a toy monkey... I thought he was real': Irish celebs on their favourite Christmas memory
Lyra: "Every Christmas now we go down to my sister’s house. She has three kids now so it’s all about the kids." Picture: Christian Tierney
When my mam and dad were together, we actually lived across the road from my auntie, and every Christmas morning mam would put in her turkey and we’d go over to my aunt’s. She’d have a lot of friends and family around and we’d have a massive sing song in her front room — my sister playing the piano, me singing and playing the tin whistle.
It’s not so much about the presents or anything like that, it was those mornings. We do it now sometimes and my sister in the evening will go on the piano and we’ll start singing, then everyone starts crying and we’re like ‘Let’s stop’. That is a fond Christmas memory for me.
Every Christmas now we go down to my sister’s house. She has three kids now so it’s all about the kids. Having the kids is amazing, going down with them in the morning and they’re so excited.
Lyra is a singer-songwriter from Cork. Her latest single ‘Weird Club’ is out now, for upcoming gigs see lyra.ie
Christmas is my favourite time of year — I’m lucky to have had lots of amazing ones.
One that sticks out in my mind was a Christmas I had with family years ago, I was probably about six years of age and we went to the Lake District and it was a year of heavy snow. It was magical! Lots of delicious treats, snow ball fights and they had a gorgeous big fluffy dog that I was obsessed with. I think it felt like the most picturesque Christmas. It was the loveliest time with my little family.
Aimee Connolly is the founder and CEO of skincare and make-up brand Sculpted by Aimee. sculptedbyaimee.com
Christmas would always be a special time filled with good food and drinks and songs with my family and cousins and my granny Mama at the heart of it all.
We were mid-Christmas quiz with about 20 to 30 of my immediate family and the wider cousins. My father Damian McCaffrey was swinging back on his chair, proud that he was the only one who knew the answer to difficult question. Then, he swung back a little too far on the chair and went over and fell back onto the ground and gave his head a right wallop. My granny Imelda loved it, she brings it up all the time. The whole room erupted with laughter, the Christmas quiz is always very good craic — good banter and gets nicely competitive.
My most memorable Christmas was probably The Big Freeze of 2010. I remember a feeling of proper community spirit at Christmas, the Christmas ceili was never more evident. I think it had a similar feeling to covid, where we were forced to appreciate the simple things. We would spend evenings playing 25 with family and friends, and it was lovely. My father also had this tradition of tying an old mattress to the back of the tractor where we would all pile on and essentially be on a sleigh going around the icy roads for the day. Neighbours would wait outside like waiting at a bus stop, and then also pile on.
We spent all our Christmases growing up between Galway and Leitrim. My mother is a Galway woman and my father is Leitrim. We grew up in Navan, Co Meath, and although it was lovely I was
always so excited to head West for Christmas. We would always go to mass on Christmas Eve in Ballymacward Church in Galway. followed by a few pints in Gerry Mac’s in Castleblakney. Christmas would
always be a special time filled with good food and drinks and songs with my family and cousins and my granny Mama at the heart of it all.
Amble will play Cork’s Virgin Media Park on June 26. For all upcoming gigs and tickets, see ambleofficial.com
I have a younger sister, but there’s 19 years between us. At home, there was only me, my mother and my father then. Santa always got what I was looking for, all my Christmases were great, to be honest with you I couldn’t pick one. There was always warmth, there was always love in the house, always love around the family — and it’s probably my favourite time of the year now.
I have three young kids myself, so Christmas is an exciting time for us all.
When I was a professional rugby player, we didn’t really have a Christmas as you usually have a match, on the 26th or the 27th of December, there wasn’t really time to switch off and be normal, but that’s something I’ve enjoyed the last two years.
Keith Earls retired from rugby in 2023 after a 16-year professional career with Munster and Ireland. He now runs coffee roastery Eleven14 in Limerick. eleven14.ie
One year, a neighbour’s cat came to our shed to have her kittens, and I had just been given a Thomas the Tank Engine toy. I put the tiny newborn kittens into the train and pushed them around the living room. I can still hear their squeaks and see the pink of their tiny mouths.
But my favourite memory is Limerick city Christmas 2009, the year the city attempted to anchor a vast, industrial metal Christmas tree within the Shannon River itself, a gesture of municipal optimism in the face of accelerating economic collapse.
We were all miserable and terrified of what was to come. All the lads were emigrating. Shutters up and down O’Connell street. Cash for Gold Shops. That tree, with its lights in the Shannon was to be our one bit of hope.
And then it broke free of its moorings and crashed into the Shannon bridge. You could hear the bang as far as Parteen. It crumpled and leaned against the whistling railings like the bones of an elderly swan. The image of it comes to me at night with the Leaving Cert dreams. Nothing can top it, pure curse of St Munchin stuff.
Blindboyboatclub is an award-winning Irish author, documentarymaker and podcaster, whose podcast has over 90 million listens worldwide. theblindboypodcast.ie
My cousins used to come down from Sligo and stay with us, so our house was, filled with people. We lived in a small cul-de-sac with loads of kids, so it was a lot of fun. I have really fond memories of growing up where we did. We really had glorious 1980s childhood, latchkey on the door, just running around doing whatever we wanted, parents a bit loose. Going to mass and coming home and having bed early, all that craic. My older brother and I would get up at four or five in the morning, he’d be killed for getting up too early, my dad freaking out.
I’m not religious anymore, but I do miss the formalities of going to Christmas mass, something ridiculous would always happen. Hundreds of people would be trying to cram their way into a church. I remember one year this woman who would go to mass every day, couldn’t get a seat. She started screaming in the middle of mass, “Is there no seat for a Christian?”
Barry Murphy is a songwriter and musician with
Hermitage Green, and a former Munster and Ireland rugby player. For upcoming gigs, see hermitagegreen.com
Christmas 1997 is the one that never fades in my memory. A storm tore through the country, pulling trees up at the roots, knocking slates from the rooftops. The lamps flickered once, twice, and then they were gone, the electricity with it. There was no heating, no television, no music, and perhaps most worryingly of all, no way of cooking dinner.
A plan was hatched — our cousins at Fernhill House Hotel had a generator, so they took care of the turkey for us. The rest of the meal was somehow pulled together on a camping stove, and we invited our next-door neighbours to join us for the meat and carrots and potatoes.
We had no lights so we burned candles. We had no radio so we sang carols. We had no TV so we talked and we talked.
What could have been a disaster became an evening of laughter and story-telling, of sharing what we had with friends. There was a sense that we were all in it together, making the best of what we had.
But as the night grew darker, my sister and I became restless. Every Christmas since we were children, we had driven Over Home, to my grandparents’ farmhouse in Aherla. It didn’t seem as if it would happen this year; it’ll be fine, my mother said, we can leave in the morning. But the clock kept ticking and the desire to go there grew. For what is Christmas without its traditions?
We begged our mother, please bring us, please- and finally, she acquiesced.
The drive through the storm felt endless, but we arrived Over Home at two minutes to midnight. My grandmother was still awake, waiting. The look on her face when she saw us, the pure joy and relief, it made the entire journey worthwhile.
That was the one year where the true spirit of the season was revealed to me. It wasn’t about the perfect meal or twinkling lights on the tree, but about kindness, community, and family coming
together when it mattered most.
Louise O’Neill is a former Irish Examiner columnist and award-winning author. Her new novel, ‘Whatever Happened to Madeline Stone?’ is coming April 2026
My favourite Christmases have always been with my family, with my children and my wife. They hold the biggest memories for me, remembering the first time we had a grandchild, and now we have 10 grandchildren that often call, and we see them all together over Christmas period. I remember back in the 1960s, I would’ve gotten cowboy suits and guns, that would be one of my biggest memories of Christmas, getting those kind of presents and coming down the stairs with all my siblings.
Paudie Moloney was a contestant on ‘The Traitors: Ireland’. He will be lacing up his dancing shoes for the 2026 iteration of ‘Dancing with the Stars’. Follow his journey at @paudie.moloney on Instagram.
You always have to bring it back to childhood. We had one Christmas abroad in Austria. We went skiing as a family. We were in the snow, I was with my whole family and it was just a beautiful time.
We have a cheeseboard every year on Christmas Eve and it’s so nice, with all our family over, all of our cousins - and we do like a cheeseboard cheese and wine night.
Aoife McNamara is the founder of Aoife McNamara, Ireland’s first B Corp fashion house. Visit Aoife’s Cottage in Adare Village, Limerick. aoifemcnamara.com
My most memorable Christmas as a child would have to be visiting family that live in Vancouver.
We rented a chalet in Whistler, and we did it for a few Christmases, but one particular year we had three families with all cousins staying in the one house and we’d ski all day on the mountains together. Being on some of the most beautiful slopes in the world, kids doing ski school in the morning, then meeting our parents and stopping for hot chocolates was some of the best memories. Then we’d go back to the chalet where there was a hot tub, and we’d also play in the snow in the back garden.
Christmas morning was extra special waking up with everyone in the house to open Santa’s presents and then we went into the mountains to go snowmobiling, stopping to make snow angels and the laughing so much together. Core memories as a big family.
Greg O’Shea is a former Irish rugby union player, Olympian and winner of the fifth series of ‘Love Island’. Follow him on Instagram @gregoshea.
My most memorable Christmas was when I was really young I got a toy monkey called Montgomery Monkey and he talked if you put your hand in his mouth. I thought that he was real (even though he said the same things over and over!). I remember spending so long sitting in bed chatting to him and telling him all my thoughts, a little bit of Christmas magic.
Derval O’Rourke is a former Irish Examiner columnist, three-time Olympian and entrepreneur. Access her health and wellness platform at derval.ie
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