Victoria is like ‘giddy teen’ with ‘new fella’

Victoria’s secret? Victoria Smurfit might be one of Ireland’s coolest actresses, but even she couldn’t keep this secret for very long from your diarist. (Who’d want to, I hear you all ask?)

She is seeing someone after splitting up from filmmaker Alistair Ramsden at the start of this year. “Who knew pure happiness could turn you into a giddy teen?” she told me exclusively.

I’m glad that the beautiful Irish actress, who rose to international fame (The Beach, About A Boy, The Run Of The Country, Once Upon A Time, Marcella etc) since playing yer wan Orla O’Connell in the BBC’s Ballykissangel in the late 1990s — and now lives in Los Angeles with her three children — is all loved-up. Victoria also told me that she is going to London “with my new fella” in two weeks’ time.

Lucky fella. He’s kissing an angel.

Steve Staunton is also a lucky fella. The former Ireland player (102 caps) and manager, and Liverpool great, was spotted checking into swish Johnstown Estate Hotel & Spa last Sunday week with his stunning wife Lynda.

How do I know that he was staying in the Co Meath hotel that has become the opulent goto-spot-on-the-edge-ofDublin for celebrities? Because your diarist was having afternoon tea when I spotted him and lovely Lynda checking in. Doubtless, the Drogheda legend enjoyed his stay at The Johnstown Estate.

Meanwhile, former ‘It’ boy Gavin Lambe-Murphy is not staying in Ireland. He has been decamped (and Gavin is nothing if not camp, is he not?) to Monaco since May. He tells me that he has been appointed Editor At Large of a trendy lifestyle app, Urbanologie.

“I am chuffed to join the team as their man on the ground in Monaco. My partner lives there. He’s an Italian cosmetic surgeon. We have been together just over a year. We met at a party in Milan through mutual friends.”