Man finds love with Tipp woman following appearance on Late Late Show Valentine's special

With this Friday's Late Late Show Valentine's special the talk of the country, one man has revealed how he met the love of his life in the famous RTÉ studios four years ago.

Rewind to February 8, 2019, the bright lights were shining at Donnybrook in Dublin 4, as Ryan Tubridy welcomed eager singletons into the studio for his Late Late Show Valentines special. 

“I was at the start of the show in a blind date scenario with six lads but only three chairs and having to impress a girl. (I was the second person out to impress the lady but the first evicted from the seat once she reached the 4th guy) her loss,” Denis Daly from Broadford said. 

Little did he know that his luck was about to change despite being rejected on live television by the female suitor. 

“Half way during the show everyone swapped seats so my friend was sent to the furthest top point of the seats so as the show ended, I was standing against a wall waiting for him and a woman walked up to me and said ‘I would have picked you’ and she ran out of the building,” he explained. 

The giddy audience then proceeded to party the night away and Denis banished his blues to one side but fate had other plans. 

“The following day a strange account popped up on Facebook as a suggested friend, don't know how as we didn't have any mutual friends. I wrote to her and said ‘Hey. How are you? How was the head from Friday night?’. That's when we started talking properly to one another,” he  revealed.

Two weeks passed before Denis made the trip to Fethard in County Tipperary for a first date with Keely, the woman he met briefly on set and who he had been chatting with on social media. 

“I arrived at her front door to be greeted by a big smile and beautiful blue eyes staring back  at me. We went on a date to her work place as she was waitressing at the time. An added bonus was her daughter/my little best friend Shannon was coming on the date with us. It was such a fun date with her and Shannon being there. The date was constantly flowing with chat and laughs,” he said. 

Denis had made plans to move to Australia for a year but having met Keely, he went for five weeks instead and kept in contact with her and her family making plans for his return. 

“​​Keely's favourite hotel is Riverside Park Hotel in Enniscorthy County Wexford. I wrote to them asking if it was possible for Shannon to bring a dessert to the table asking Keely to marry me. They agreed to this and I was talking to them every second day making sure all plans were perfect,” the Broadford native said. 

Denis had arranged for Keely’s sister to bring Shannon to the hotel on the evening that they were having dinner and pretended he left something in the room while he went to meet her in reception. 

"The waitress took our order and came back shortly after with Shannon holding the dessert. She lent in and said ‘here you go’ and Keely looked into her eyes and smiled and said ‘thank you’. Funny thing was Keely didn't even realise Shannon handed the plate to her until 10 minutes later. Thankfully she said yes," he told the Limerick Leader/Limerick Live. 

Denis and Keely tied the knot on September 16 2022 in Wexford (where Keely was born) and had the reception in the Riverside Park Hotel and Shannon wasn’t the only daughter there on the big day. 

The couple welcomed Millie Rose Daly on April 1 2022 and the hurling fan found out the pregnancy news the day after Limerick won the All-Ireland in August 2021. 

Denis, who now lives in Fethard, took a chance and it paid off in a way he least expected and he shared some advice to those looking for love. 

“Get yourself out there more. Get out of your comfort zone and away from the dating apps. I put me and my friends' names into the Late Late Valentine's special as a bit of a laugh and who knows, possibly meeting someone. Little did I know the success I was going to get from it.

"Myself and Keely were invited the year after we were on it as they heard we had got together. So, it was great to show people that it works,” he concluded.