Festive Five TV Highlights for New Year s Eve
Updated / Thursday, 31 Dec 2020
20:46
TV Editor
Tonight s top New Year’s Eve TV includes Kathryn Thomas and Deirdre O Kane hosting the NYE Countdown Show, there’s a Mrs Brown s Boys New Year Special, and Jools Holland’s annual Hootenanny . . .
NYE Countdown Show, 10.45pm, RTÉ One
Kathryn Thomas and Deirdre O Kane front a celebration of homegrown talent from Dublin s famed Gaiety Theatre.
Sharon Shannon and her band will be the house band for the evening, Jerry Fish will bring his unique energy to the stage and Mary Coughlan will give a soulful solo performance as well as a special duet with Brian Kennedy.
If ever there was a year we were eager to see vanish in the rear-view mirror, it’s 2020. Yet ringing in 2021 will obviously be more complicated than is traditional. Going out and having fun is essentially a public health hazard. This New Year’s Eve will be largely a virtual affair.
Happily, however, there are still plenty of options. Obviously, none will come close to the real thing, but in a year in which scraping by has become a way of life, a virtual New Year’s Eve celebration doesn’t feel like the worst idea ever. Also, many of us secretly or not so secretly loathe December 31 anyway. For these individuals, snuggling up on the couch is a more than acceptable ‘plan B’.
New Year 2021 Ireland: Live updates during very different lockdown celebration as 2020 ends
Let s welcome 2021 in style - even if it is a very different experience!
31/12/2019 Lighting & Lasers during Liffey Lights Midnight Moment Matinee as part of New Year s Festival Dublin (NYF Dublin) at the Custom House,Dublin (Image: Gareth Chaney/Collins)
It s almost the end of 2020, and many people across Dublin and all of Ireland are eager to see the back of a very tough 12 months.
It has been a very difficult year for many, as the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the world, putting a stop to normal life.
Many have lost loved ones, been forced to stay away from family and had weddings, birthdays, christenings and holidays cancelled as the world came to a standstill.
Singer Mary Coughlan is facing having to demolish a ‘granny flat’ on the grounds of her rural home in Co Wicklow after An Bord Pleanála refused to grant her planning permission for the unauthorised development.
Career included many changes in Donegal ETB
When Jim McGlynn completed his Leaving Certificate Examinations in 1977 his goal, like many of his peers of that time, was to get a secure, permanent and pensionable job.
The attractions of a dependable salary, pension entitlements and the chance of promotion with one employer drew the young Glenfin man towards the Donegal Vocational Education Committee (VEC).
Together with Paddy Gallagher, Finola Furey, Frankie Quinn, Patrick Doherty and the fondly remembered Patsy Breslin RIP, he made up what was later referred to as “The Class of ‘78”.
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Last week, Jim (61) attended his final meeting of the Donegal Education and Training Board (ETB), which replaced the former VEC in 2013, before his retirement at the end of the year.