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Birth of Kian Egan, Pop Singer, Songwriter & Musician

Kian John Francis Egan, Irish pop singer, songwriter and musician, best known as a member of pop group Westlife, is born on April 29, 1980, in Sligo, County Sligo. Westlife has released twelve albums, embarked on thirteen world tours, and won numerous awards, becoming one of the most successful musical groups of all time.

Egan is born to Kevin Egan and Patricia Egan (née Moore). He is the fifth of their seven children. He attends Summerhill College secondary school in Sligo, where he meets fellow band members Mark Feehily and Shane Filan. He is the cousin of Filan’s wife, Gillian Walsh. Before Westlife, he works at a jeans store.

In his early musical years, Egan is part of a rock band named Skrod. He can play at least five musical instruments, including guitar, piano, and drums. He is a grade 8 pianist and was taught piano by his brother Gavin Egan, a university music graduate and full-time teacher of music in the UK. Before he is in Westlife, he is part of a pop group called Six as One, which later changes its name to IOYOU, with fellow Westlife members Mark Feehily and Shane Filan, alongside Graham Keighron, Michael “Miggles” Garrett and Derrick Lacey.

After IOUYOU is signed by Louis Walsh, its lineup changes to include Egan, Mark Feehily, Shane Filan and two new members – Nicky Byrne and Brian McFadden. The band’s name changes to Westside and later to Westlife. Westlife splits up in 2012 after a Greatest Hits Tour.

During a year long hiatus from Westlife in 2008, Egan launches a new venture with Louis Walsh to put together and co-manage girlband, Wonderland, which includes Jodi Albert, who on May 8, 2009, becomes Egan’s wife. Wonderland’s debut album reaches number 6 on the Irish Albums Chart and number 8 on the UK Albums Chart, however, just four months later, they are dropped by Mercury Records and eventually split up.

In June 2012, Egan announces in an interview with the Sunday Life that he is “looking at doing a TV show with Sky on surfing.” Later reports suggest that the show would be eight episodes long and would broadcast on Sky One later in the year.

In July 2012, Egan presents the British programme This Morning’s Hub on a regular basis, standing in for the regular hosts. Later that year, every Friday morning in October, he begins giving reports on another British programme, This Morning, about the remaining contestants in the ninth series of The X Factor, before the competition’s live shows that weekend.

On October 21, 2012, Egan co-presents the revamped version of Surprise Surprise, but does not return the following year.

In 2013, Egan appears on the thirteenth series of I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! He is ultimately crowned King Of The Jungle, which contributes to an invitation to being signed by Rhino Records to create his Home album.

In January 2014, Egan signs with Rhino Records of Warner Music Group and his debut album Home is released on March 14 of that year in Ireland and March 17 in the UK. His debut single “Home“, a cover of a song by the band Daughtry, has its first exclusive play on BBC Radio 2 on lunch time with Terry Wogan‘s show. The album peaks at number 2 on the Irish Albums Chart and number 9 on the UK Albums Chart. In May 2014, he releases the second single from the album, “I’ll Be,” a cover of the track by Edwin McCain.

In October 2018, Westlife announces the group’s reunion as a four-piece. In 2019, the group headlines “The Twenty Tour,” named in honour of Westlife’s 20th anniversary since its formation and the release of its first single, “Swear It Again,” in 1999. In addition to touring, Westlife also releases new music. “Hello My Love,” the first single from the group’s upcoming album, debuts on The Graham Norton Show in January 2019.

Egan is one of four coaches on The Voice of Ireland. However, his dreams of winning the show go to tatters as he throws his lot in with Jim Devine from Northern Ireland. This immediately puts him at a disadvantage to the other contestants as, ahead of the final, viewers in Northern Ireland cannot download his single, the tally of which contributes to his vote. He is left fuming and in need of support from Sharon Corr as he expresses his opinion on the unfairness of it all and has “huge rows” about it but to no avail.

Egan and his wife and three sons live in Strandhill, County Sligo. He is ranked number five on Ireland’s Sexiest Man of 2014. As of 2017, his net worth is 18 million euros.


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Birth of Irish-German Actor, Michael Fassbender

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Michael Fassbender, Irish-German actor, is born in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany on April 2, 1977.

Fassbender’s mother, Adele, is from Larne, County Antrim, while his father, Josef Fassbender, is German. According to Fassbender family lore, his mother is the great-grand-niece of Michael Collins, the Irish leader during the Irish War of Independence. When he is two years old, his parents move to Killarney, County Kerry, where they run the West End House, a restaurant where his father works as a chef. His parents move to Kerry as they want their children to grow up in the countryside rather than the industrial backdrop of their previous residence in Germany. He is raised Catholic and serves as an altar boy at the church his family attends. He has an older sister, Catherine, who is a neuropsychologist.

Fassbender attends Fossa National School and St. Brendan’s College, both in Killarney. He decides that he wants to be an actor at age 17 when he is cast in a play by Donal Courtney. At 19, he moves to London to study at the Drama Centre London, a constituent school of Central Saint Martins. In 1999, he drops out of the Drama Centre and tours with the Oxford Stage Company to perform the play Three Sisters. Before he finds work as an actor, he works as a bartender and postman. Other jobs include labour work, market research for the Royal Mail and working for Dell computers.

Fassbender’s feature film debut is in the fantasy war epic 300 (2007) as a Spartan warrior. His earlier roles include various stage productions, as well as starring roles on television such as in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers (2001) and the Sky One fantasy drama Hex (2004–05). He first comes to prominence for his role as Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) activist Bobby Sands in Hunger (2008), for which he wins a British Independent Film Award. Subsequent roles include in the independent film Fish Tank (2009), as a Royal Marines lieutenant in Inglourious Basterds (2009), as Edward Rochester in the 2011 film adaptation of Jane Eyre, as Carl Jung in A Dangerous Method (2011), as the sentient android David 8 in Prometheus (2012) and its sequel, Alien: Covenant (2017), and in the musical comedy-drama Frank (2014) as an eccentric musician loosely inspired by Frank Sidebottom.

In 2011, Fassbender debuts as the Marvel Comics supervillain Magneto in X-Men: First Class and goes on to share the role with Ian McKellen in X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), before reprising it again in X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) and Dark Phoenix (2019). Also in 2011, his performance as a sex addict in Shame earns him the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice International Film Festival and is nominated for Golden Globe and BAFTA Awards. In 2013, his role as slave owner Edwin Epps in the slavery epic 12 Years a Slave is similarly praised, earning him his first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In 2013, he appears in another Ridley Scott film, The Counselor. In 2015, he portrays the title role in the Danny Boyle-directed biopic Steve Jobs (2015) and played Macbeth in Justin Kurzel‘s adaptation of William Shakespeare‘s play. For the former, he receives Academy Award, BAFTA, Golden Globe and SAG nominations. In 2015, he produces the western Slow West, in which he also stars.

In December 2014, Fassbender begins dating Swedish actress Alicia Vikander, whom he met on the set of The Light Between Oceans. The two marry in a private ceremony on October 14, 2017, in Ibiza, Spain. As of 2017, they reside in Lisbon, Portugal.


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Birth of Ardal O’Hanlon, Comedian & Actor

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Ardal O’Hanlon, comedian and actor, is born in Carrickmacross, County Monaghan on October 8, 1965. He plays Father Dougal McGuire in Father Ted, George Sunday/Thermoman in My Hero, and DI Jack Mooney in Death in Paradise.

O’Hanlon is the son of politician and doctor Rory O’Hanlon and Teresa Ward. The episode of Who Do You Think You Are? which airs on October 6, 2008, reveals that his paternal grandfather, Michael O’Hanlon, was a medical student at University College Dublin (UCD) who joined the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the Irish War of Independence and was a member of Michael Collins‘s squad which assassinated British secret service agents on the morning of Bloody Sunday. Details of his grandfather’s activities survive in UCD Archives, as well as Blackrock College. It also transpires that, on his mother’s side, he is a close relative of Peter Fenelon Collier.

O’Hanlon is schooled in Blackrock College in Dublin and graduates in 1987 from the National Institute for Higher Education, Dublin (now Dublin City University) with a degree in Communications Studies.

Together with Kevin Gildea and Barry Murphy, O’Hanlon founds the International Comedy Cellar, upstairs in the International Bar on Dublin’s South Wicklow Street. Dublin has no comedy scene at the time. As a stand up, he wins the Hackney Empire New Act of the Year competition in 1994. For a time, he is the presenter of The Stand Up Show.

O’Hanlon is spotted by Graham Linehan, who casts him as Father Dougal McGuire in Father Ted (1995–98). In 1995 he receives the Top TV Comedy Newcomer at the British Comedy Awards for this role. In 1995, he appears as Father Dougal in a Channel 4 ident and during Comic Relief on BBC One. This is followed by the award-winning short comedy film Flying Saucer Rock ‘n’ Roll.

O’Hanlon moves into straight acting alongside Emma Fielding and Beth Goddard in the ITV comedy-drama Big Bad World, which airs for two series in summer 1999 and winter 2001. He also plays a minor role in The Butcher Boy and appears in an episode of the original Whose Line is it Anyway?.

In 2000, O’Hanlon stars in the comedy series My Hero, in which he plays a very naive superhero from the planet Ultron. His character juggles world-saving heroics with life in suburbia. He stays in the role until the first episode of series 6 in July 2006 where he is replaced by James Dreyfus during the same episode.

O’Hanlon also provides the voice of the lead character in the three Christmas television cartoon specials of Robbie the Reindeer. He appears in the 2005 BBC One sitcom Blessed, written by Ben Elton. Towards the end of 2005, he plays an eccentric Scottish character, Coconut Tam, in the family-based film, The Adventures of Greyfriars Bobby. Although more commonly on television, he also appears on radio. In 2015 he appears as incompetent angel Smallbone in the sitcom The Best Laid Plans, also on BBC Radio 4.

In 2006, O’Hanlon writes and presents an RTÉ television series called Leagues Apart, which sees him investigate the biggest and most passionate football rivalries in a number of European countries. He follows this with another RTÉ show, So You Want To Be Taoiseach? in 2007. It is a political series where he gives tongue-in-cheek advice on how to go about becoming Taoiseach of Ireland.

O’Hanlon appears in the Doctor Who episode “Gridlock“, broadcast on April 14, 2007, in which he plays a cat-like creature named Thomas Kincade Brannigan. He appears in Series 3 of the TV show Skins, playing Naomi Campbell’s Politics teacher named Kieran. He then goes on to form a relationship with Naomi’s mother, played by Olivia Colman. He plays the lead role in Irish comedy television programme Val Falvey, TD on RTÉ One.

In February 2011, O’Hanlon returns to the Gate Theatre, Dublin starring in the Irish premiere of Christopher Hampton‘s translation of Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage, alongside Maura Tierney. In 2011, he appears in the comedy panel show Argumental.

O’Hanlon has written a novel, The Talk of the Town, which is published in 1998. The novel is about a teenage boy, Patrick Scully, and his friends.

In February 2015 O’Hanlon officially launches the 2015 Sky Cat Laughs Comedy Festival which takes place in Kilkenny from May 28–June 1. In 2015 he plays the role of Peter the Milkman in the Sky One sitcom After Hours.

On February 2, 2017, it is announced O’Hanlon will play the lead role in the BBC crime drama Death in Paradise taking the role of DI Jack Mooney following Kris Marshall‘s departure the same day.