Mark goes home to Cork for niece’s Xmas wedding
He is off air on Ireland AM from December 22 to January 2. And besides, as the pioneer of Irish breakfast TV, having been on the couch of the aforementioned, and very much esteemed, breakfast show for 18 years, Mark Cagney has certainly earned his Yuletide break.
And as one of Cork’s most esteemed exports, it is not surprising, perhaps, that he is returning to his favourite place the week after next, albeit only for a few days, before going back once more to his Sutton bolthole on the northside of Co Dublin. Mark and his wife Audrey “tend to hibernate over Christmas. Mostly it will be spent catching up on sleep”, says the man who has been getting up before dawn for nearly two decades. Indeed the Yuletide for Mark is invariably “very quiet, very family and very traditional,” he explained, before adding with a Cagney chuckle: “So, no jetting off to Marbs or Gstaad!”
But the delights of Ballycotton, however, are too hard to resist.
On December 29, Mark, Audrey and the kids (Gerard, Sophie, Daniel, and Mary) will be travelling down to Cork for a family wedding. The top broadcaster told me that the nuptials are “my sister Cathy’s daughter Sinead O’Sullivan’s wedding”. The Cork beauty is tying the knot to her beau Robert O’Regan in Shanagarry, East Cork. This will be followed, happily, with a big bash to celebrate that evening in the Garryvoe Hotel, Ballycotton. I bet Mark won’t be up at dawn the day after the wedding.