Weatherman Deric causes a stir in Lismore
Virgin Media weatherman Deric O’hArtagáin, paid a visit to Lismore last week and broadcast live from the local town with his weather reports.
After reaching out on Instagram, Lismore Heritage Centre got in touch with the TV star, and before they knew it, Deric was on his way to broadcast live from Lismore.
Alice O’Donoghue of sales and marketing in Lismore Heritage Centre, said that they were ‘very excited’ when they got word that Deric would be broadcasting from Lismore.
“We had been in touch with him for a while so we were delighted. We didn’t actually expect him to come. It was a huge boost for us here,” Alice said.
While visiting, it is understood that Deric made the most of the locality, arriving the day before the broadcast.
He was accommodated overnight at Ballyin House, with an evening meal at Foley’s on the Mall, and breakfast at Fuller’s Bistro.
VIRTUAL EXPERIENCE
At 7am on Thursday (27th), the weather broadcast went live with reports given from Lismore every half hour until 9.30am.
Two reports were given from the Lismore Heritage Centre, one from the street, and one of which was inside at the virtual reality experience.
“Because people don’t get to see the castle from inside, visitors can come here to the Heritage Centre and get to see inside Lismore Castle with the virtual reality headsets. I really think it’s that virtual reality experience that brought Deric down to us. It’s a modern way of viewing our history through technology” Alice told The Avondhu.
Two further broadcasts were done from outside Lismore Castle and local tour guide Gearoid Morrissey, gave Deric a brief history of the castle while they were there.
Lismore Heritage Centre manager Mealla Fahey, noted the positive boost that the national broadcasts has had for Lismore.
“We were very excited about it and were delighted to welcome Deric to Lismore. We had a fantastic day with him and he really gave us a lot of coverage which is great for us and for Lismore.
“From a tourism perspective, this promotes our walking tours and our virtual reality experience of the castle, as seeing inside the castle is not something you get to do on a regular basis and it really showcases Lismore,” Mealla said.
BUZZ FOR LOCAL PUPILS
First-class students at Bunscoil Bothar na Naomh in Lismore had been learning about the weather in Irish last week and much to their surprise, the class, along with their teacher Ms Dunford and support teacher Ms Hahessy, got the chance to meet the Virgin Media weatherman.
“We had been learning about the weather all week in Irish and I heard Deric was coming to Lismore to do a weather report on Thursday, so we went for a walk around and bumped into him when he was filming in a field outside the Castle,” their teacher Ms Dunford said.
Speaking with The Avondhu, Ms Dunford noted how friendly Deric was. Having been a former teacher, Deric made the most of this meeting and spoke to the children about the environment, about using greener methods of transport to school, the importance of the bee and climate change.
“The children were absolutely delighted. We took a picture with him and he said he would put it on his weather report and they were all thrilled because they were going to be famous.
“We were very impressed with him and we all thought he was very nice. When we came back up to the school we wrote our news and watched some videos of Deric doing the weather reports,” Ms Dunford added.
Sure enough, the picture of Deric meeting the first-class students of Bun Scoil Bhothar na Naomh of Lismore appeared on live TV on Friday evening.
Lismore Heritage Centre extended a big ‘thank you’ to Deric for visiting Lismore and broadcasting from the town and the Heritage Centre.
The staff of Lismore Heritage Company were also thanked for their hard work on the day.