It’s a Virgin birth! Baby girl for Ireland AM’s Ciara

CIARA Doherty and her husband Richard Stern have welcomed their first child together, a baby girl.

Yesterday, the Virgin Media One presenter’s Ireland AM colleagues announced the happy news, reporting that the new arrival weighed seven pounds.

Mother and baby are ‘doing great’ according to Virgin Media Television, who also revealed the couple, both employees of the broadcaster, have yet to name their child.

Richard and Ciara have her sister Laura to thank for their relationship, after she scouted Doherty’s husband for her in TV3 when she worked there alongside them.

Following their New Year’s Eve engagement in Ciara’s home county, Donegal, in 2015 the pair tied the knot with a stunning ceremony in Spain’s Montserrat mountains in 2017.

While many fans of the TV host sent best wishes to her on Ireland AM’s Facebook post, others complained they missed the new mum on the show, saying it was ‘no fun’ without her and urged her to hurry back to work.

‘Fabulous news, well done and enjoy motherhood. Ireland AM is no fun without you, miss your sense of humour, can’t wait to see you back on screen very soon,’ read one comment.

Another read: ‘Congratulations, enjoy and pls pls come back as soon as you can!’

When Ciara announced the news of her pregnancy live on air in July, she said she felt ‘thrilled’ and ‘very lucky’ to be expecting a new arrival at the end of January.

The Donegal woman embarked on her maternity leave a week and a half earlier than planned, departing from her presenting slot at the beginning of last month.