Goss Cover Star: Erin McGregor

Erin McGregor is having her moment in the spotlight.

The newlywed is our Goss Cover Star for October, fresh from her stunning wedding to her long-term love Terry Kavanagh.

After ten years together, the couple tied the knot at the lavish Cashel Palace Hotel in Co. Tipperary in August – which attracted worldwide attention.

The entire occasion cost a rumoured €1.5million – including Erin’s wedding dress, a white Zuhair Murad gown, which reportedly cost at least €100,000.

From the outside looking in, it might be easy for people to think they know who Erin really is. But trust me, there’s much more to Erin than meets the eye.

She is the older sister of one of the world’s most well-known sports stars, MMA fighter Conor McGregor.

In turn Erin has been opened up to the world of showbiz, and over the last 15 years has attended envy-inducing celebrity events (meeting stars from Drake to Jake Gyllenhaal) and has flown to some of the most luxurious spots in the world.

But has it changed her as a person? Sitting down with Erin in Goss HQ, she admits: “I think people definitely have misconceptions [about me].”

When asked what she thinks those misconceptions are, she explains: “I don’t know, I think people sometimes think I’d be stuck up, or people slag my accent a lot.”

“No matter what anybody has ever said to me, I’ve never really tried to change who I am.”

“Obviously, everyone grows as a person, and there is things that you change because you want to change and that’s who you want to be. But I’ve never tried to be something I wasn’t. I have to be who I am.”

It’s true, Erin has never tried to change who she is, and she is still the same girl who worked as a hairdresser for over 20 years.

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I first met Erin back in 2016, when she was heavily pregnant with her son Harry. She was new to the world of showbiz and just starting to find her feet. However, it was clear she had huge ambitions and a strong vision – so it’s no surprise to me now that she’s become such a success.

A lot has changed for the mum-of-two since then, but her refreshing and raw honesty hasn’t gone anywhere. She seems like the exact same woman I met back then as she sits in front of me, although I would say she’s even more grounded and confident now.

Her recent lavish wedding was covered by press outlets all over the world, and she inked an exclusive deal with US magazine PEOPLE for the rights to her wedding pictures.

The magazine is known for covering the weddings of huge stars like Kim Kardashian, but Erin wasn’t fazed by the media circus surrounding her big day.

“I guess it doesn’t really feel any different to me,” she confessed.

“I guess I was just a girl getting married and and documenting our journey online, and people were really interested in that. I didn’t really feel like all eyes were on me.”

Plenty of people have asked how she landed such a lucrative US magazine deal, but Erin said: “I think maybe the Irish media didn’t realise that I have been in American media before, probably not to that extent, but I definitely have been before.”

“I don’t know, it’s just a magazine, I suppose. I didn’t go, ‘Oh my God, this is a really big deal’.”

“What I did feel on the lead up is that a lot of people really wanted our day to work out because of Harry, because of the struggles that people like our families face,” she continued.

“And we could actually feel that there was a lot of people rooting for us to have that day, and we could actually feel that.”

Erin and Terry’s eight-year-old son Harry was diagnosed with autism in 2019, and is non-verbal.

The couple carefully planned their special day around their beloved son, to ensure he had access to a sensory-friendly environment.

Erin said the “hardest part” of planning their wedding was the venue, and making sure they were able to “accommodate all of Harry’s needs”.

“People really wanted our day to work out because of Harry, because of the struggles that people like our families face”

“Everything was really centred around Harry’s well-being in that day and making sure that he was happy and safe and had everything he needed, while giving us our day at the same time.

“So it was trying to combine Harry’s world and our world side by side, that they could live happily for the weekend. That was really, really important to us. And that was the key element of choosing a venue, and choosing a country, I couldn’t even choose a country for a long time!”

“I contemplated abroad, and for a long time my heart was overseas. I thought, I really want to go away to get married. Just the aesthetic of getting married away.”

“But logistically for Harry, for us, for his safety, for my anxiety and Terry’s anxiety, just everything felt safer at home. All his needs are here, and there’s a sense of safety when I’m in this country.”

“I just felt having the stress of a wedding and then having the everyday challenges of being a parent of a child with special needs, that’s quite stressful on its own.

“So combining those two and maybe being in a different country, I just felt way too nervous. I felt like if anything went wrong, as in for Harry, that I was in Ireland, I was near his local shops, I can get the food he eats, I’m near the hospital I might need, everything I just felt was here.

“It’s really difficult even trying to have a conversation with hospitals in Ireland when you have a child with special needs, let alone a hospital in a different country.”

Thankfully, their wedding turned out to be the perfect fairytale, and Erin described it as “the happiest day of my life”.

While their schedules have been “very hectic” since they tied the knot, the 43-year-old admitted she’s noticed a “huge difference” in Terry.

“I definitely feel like Terry had the most amazing day,” she said. “We were looking back at photographs and he said to me ‘I don’t think I’ve smiled as much in my whole life as I did on those three or four days’.

“The whole wedding day, in all the pictures, he is smiling so much. It’s definitely brought that little spring back in our step… We’re dying for our honeymoon, though.”

The couple jetted off to Mauritius for their honeymoon this week, and Erin said it couldn’t come quick enough.

“It’s definitely brought that little spring back in our step…”

While Erin has been a well-known face since her brother Conor started making waves in the UFC around 2015, her first major break into the industry was when she landed a spot on RTÉ’s Dancing with the Stars in 2018.

At the time, Erin was plagued by nepotism claims, as many argued she only got on the show “because she’s Conor McGregor’s sister”.

During our chat, Erin acknowledged that she did get a leg up from her brother, and admitted that she took the opportunity with “both hands”.

“It’s funny because I am somebody’s sister. Do you know what I mean? I’m very happy that I got the break I got, and I’m very grateful that I got that break from Conor,” she said.

“I guess I always felt like I was my own person, because he’s my younger brother.”

Erin noted that as the eldest in her family, her siblings were always referred to as “Erin’s sister” or “Erin’s brother” when they were growing up.

“So I guess its turned around now to be like ‘You’re Conor McGregor’s sister’. I get that a lot. So it’s not a strange feeling. That’s what people do, it’s just now on a much larger scale. I’m kind of used to it now.”

“I’m very happy that I got the break I got, and I’m very grateful that I got that break from Conor”

One person she definitely didn’t mind being introduced to as “Conor’s sister” was Jake Gyllenhaal, who appeared in a movie called Road House with her brother earlier this year.

Erin recalled meeting the Hollywood superstar at a premiere, and reminding herself to “act cool” when he acknowledged her work as a Panto star.

“When I met Jake, my mam was like ‘This is Erin, Conor’s sister’. And he was like, ‘Yeah, I know who you are. He talks about you a lot’,” she told me.

“And I said something about the pantomime, and he said ‘Oh, no, I know what you do’. I was like what? Act cool, act cool. He was so nice, really nice.”

Jake is just one of many celebrities she has rubbed shoulders with over the years, but Erin admitted she very rarely gets starstruck.

While she’s got to experience the life of an a-list celebrity, Erin insisted she still has a “normal life at the same time”.

“It’s still pretty normal. I still go down to SuperValu and wouldn’t have my makeup on, and I still like that stuff. So I guess I like to keep a balance to it as well,” she said.

Erin’s relatable nature and candid honesty has gained her a legion of fans on social media, and she has over 253k followers on Instagram alone.

While she initially became known for being someone’s sibling, Erin has proven she’s so much more than a nepo-sister, and has made a name for herself in her own right.

In recent years, the former hairdresser has won praise for sharing updates on her son’s struggles with autism, and has built a trusted online community with other parents of children with special needs.

Erin said she’s glad people have seen a “different side” to her through social media, and believes it has changed people’s “preconceived ideas” of her.

“I am happy that I’ve been definitely opening people’s eyes and making people more aware of the situation that other parents might be in with children with autism. So I’m really glad that we’re opening people’s eyes to that. We’re bringing a lot more awareness to it.

“And I guess I’m probably just living my life, and opening up online. So it doesn’t feel unnatural to me to do it. I was a hairdresser for all my life, so I would have a very open relationship with people.

“You would share your daily life with people, they share their life with you. I’ve always had that since I was 15. So if you would have somebody in your chair doing the hair, you know their life story and they know yours. So it’s like I’m still doing that, it’s just a bigger scale now with maybe more eyes on it.

“At the beginning, I was probably a little bit more criticised, or people had preconceived ideas of who they thought I was. And now people have maybe seen a little bit deeper into my world, and gone ‘Oh, that’s who she is’. So I feel like I’ve always been like that, it just wasn’t always on social media.”

“People had preconceived ideas of who they thought I was. And now people have maybe seen a little bit deeper into my world…”

While Harry was diagnosed with autism back in 2019, it took Erin a long time to open up about his condition as she was concerned how it might impact him.

“I was worried about trying to protect him the best I could. Maybe if he went to school and people would bully him, that was a big thing for me,” she said.

“I was also in a really vulnerable place myself, I was trying to deal with the diagnosis, I had so many different emotions. I was still trying to figure out what autism really was. I had a child who didn’t sleep, who was crying a lot of the time, so I was very sleep-deprived. I was completely not even aware of my surroundings.

“I definitely wasn’t in a great place emotionally, and I was really trying to save all my energy for Harry. I also feel that when I look back now, I definitely was doing the best I could to survive what I was going through.

“And I didn’t really know what I needed to do, because when you’re handed a diagnosis, it feels like you’re being told ‘Okay, bye’. There was no clear path. It just felt so overwhelming, to be handed all these forms and all these things you have to do. You have absolutely no clue where to even begin.

“I remember I used to cry and look at him and I’d say to me Ma, ‘Do you think he knows I love him? Do you think he loves me?’ I was so scared, because again, this was a whole new world to me, and I hadn’t a clue what was ahead of me. I really, really hadn’t a clue what was ahead of me.”

“Also I had been subjected to people saying really, really mean things to me before. I have seen what the public can do and how much they can say mean things, and they think it doesn’t affect people because they might be in the limelight, but it actually does affect people,” she continued.

“I don’t think that people understand the impact of another person’s words, and I think if they did, I would like to think on a human level, they wouldn’t do that anymore. So I was very aware when I first came into the public eye, what people would say could hurt me. So I didn’t want that to happen about my precious son, and I was going to do anything I could to protect him against that.”

Erin recalled being “annihilated” online when she opened up about Harry’s condition for the first time on Ireland AM in December 2021.

“I used the word ‘grief’ because it was actually a psychologist who had said ‘You are grieving. This is a form of grief. This is the professional term’. And I used that word, and I was annihilated.

“I think people were holding on to that word, but I was trying to articulate the best I could that feeling of being so in love with your child, as a mother you would literally die for your child, I wanted to do anything I could to help him, protect him, to do whatever I could. And I was so heartbroken for him thinking that he was going to experience difficulties in his life.”

“And I think people will see on the journey where I will bring Harry somewhere, and it’s not that he doesn’t want to go in there, it’s because his anxiety is so bad or the noise of the place is so bad, he just physically and mentally can’t be there.

“And that’s really difficult as a parent to watch your child look at other kids playing at a birthday party through a glass window because he wants to play with them, but he actually can’t.

“He wanted to be part of the wedding, but he actually couldn’t on the day. Now we had three amazing days with him, but on the day of the wedding, he physically couldn’t be part of it.”

Erin and Terry found a special way to include their son Harry in the ceremony, as they knew he may not feel comfortable walking down the aisle with the other page boys and flower girls.

To still capture this special moment, they recorded a video during the rehearsal of Harry walking up the aisle with Erin, which they played on two TV screens during the ceremony.

Erin and Terry are among thousands of parents in Ireland who are affected by the lack of resources for neurodiverse children and adults.

“They literally need to completely change the system,” she told me. “It’s not working. It’s not fit for purpose.”

“They can dot their eyes, they can say they have this and that, they have nothing. They have nothing for the children. They can’t even support the parents to support the children. They’re expecting parents to work and pay for private. They are expecting parents to do online courses.

“If a parent is at home and staying at home, because a lot of parents have no choice but to be at home with their children, they’re also expecting those parents to do online courses or courses with the HSE to become an occupational therapist, a speech therapist, a behavioural therapist, a teacher, a doctor.

“Harry was eight in July, and he has never had one therapy from the HSE, ever. Nothing, not one.”

“The only thing that we have ever received has been parenting courses. And obviously these courses, they are helpful, but it’s a generic course. So let’s just say, even Harry’s toilet training was so difficult.”

“They literally need to completely change the system. It’s not working. It’s not fit for purpose”

“And it was actually Harry’s teacher in his school that said ‘I’ll help you with it’. Everybody else is like ‘Oh, that’s not my area. Oh, that’s not my area’. And she was like ‘I’ll do it with you’.

Erin’s passion and hunger for a solution is so clear, she’s not just fighting for a better life for Harry, she’s fighting for all the other parents out there, parents that are exhausted, heartbroken and hoping for more.

“If I could wave a magic wand to the higher powers in government, I wish I could make them see how amazing these children are, how much potential they have, how much the right support would impact not only their lives, their parents lives, but actually the greater good for the community because they bring so much, and they have so much to offer.”

“I feel like it’s such a disservice to humanity the way they’re being left out. And I have seen firsthand what the teachers, the SNAs, and parents tirelessly working for the goals that other people would see as menial.

“Like Harry using a fork, we worked for months with the school, with Harry, with his therapist, just for him to be able to use a fork. Now, his preference is not to use a fork, he doesn’t eat a lot of food that would have use of a fork, but for him to have that goal was huge, and he was so proud of himself.

“But there is so much that these children have to offer the world, and I feel with the right resources and love and support that they already get from their families, if they had that, I think we would see wonderful things happen.

“And I think it’s such a shame, and I think it’s actually a shame on the government that they’re letting the most vulnerable people down. And I think that’s why people are so angry all the time, and not only are families dealing with the emotional side of it and the stressful side and the financial impact it has, and the huge impact it has on other children in your family.”

“Harry is nonverbal, he should have a communication device, and he does because I’m in a financial situation to be able to provide a communication device. But there’s many, many other families out there that aren’t in that situation, and their child doesn’t have the resource for a communication app.”

“That, to me, is like the government not putting in a wheelchair ramp. It’s blatantly seeing what these children need, and going ‘we can’t provide it’.

I asked Erin if she’d like to use her platform to lobby for change with the government someday, but sadly she doesn’t think they “care enough” to listen.

“I would love to make a difference. I would love to hope that they would want to make a difference. And as sad as this may sound, I really don’t think they care enough. I really don’t think they care enough about us to change it,” she confessed.

“So for me, I guess it would be to share our story, to share how I feel as a parent, how autism affects our lives, and hopefully help other parents maybe feel less alone. Because I know when Harry was first diagnosed, I felt so alone.

“I used to search the Internet, seeing could I connect with another parent through the lens. Because I didn’t want to go to any of the groups, I wasn’t ready for that. I wanted to peep in the curtain and be like, ‘Tell me what’s going to happen’. And I tried my best to search for someone who felt what I was feeling, and said, ‘It’s okay to feel like that’.

“You’re in a state of constant fight or flight. I read somewhere that a parent of a child with a disability is in a state of stress as much as a soldier is who goes to war.”

“You’re in a state of constant fight or flight”

“So I guess for me, I feel that’s where my energy goes in, is actually the parents and the children, because I know how much the parents and the children have helped me. No politician has ever helped me. It’s the parent that has been there before me that has helped me.

“People will always come to me and they say to me ‘you’ve helped me understand’, whether it’s grannies, whether it’s friends, I’ve opened those conversations for people all the time. But I always say to them, ‘You help me more than I help you’.

“I think people at the beginning had this misconception of like ‘what would she know?’ because I have a brother who is hugely supportive of my son, and without him, we would be lost. But Harry still doesn’t talk, so no amount of money would give my son a voice.”

“No amount of money would give my son a voice”

While Erin has built a supportive community of people on social media, she has also faced her fair share of nasty comments – from cruel trolls commenting on her looks, to others questioning her parenting.

I asked Erin how she deals with negativity online, and the Crumlin native admitted: “I definitely think it depends on the day. If I’m sad or I’m upset or I’ve had a low day, I can’t rise above it.”

“There is some days it hits harder, and then other days I would actually have a bit more maybe empathy or compassion for the person that might be saying that to me. Some days I can be angry, some days I want to scream and shout. Some days I want to say, ‘What would you know about what we go through?’

“But the reality is, I try my best now to save all my energy from my son, because I’ve learned, and it took me a long, long time, I’ve learned that there was a lot of ideas of how I thought my life was going to go and what I thought my life was going to be. And it’s not that way anymore because I’ve had to make huge adjustments for Harry.

“Some days I can be angry, some days I want to scream and shout”

“Harry will always come first. So anything that is taking away from my energy, I say to myself, ‘Erin, that is energy that you could be giving to your son to help him in his day to day life’. So why would I give somebody that precious energy that’s really for my son? And I choose very carefully now what I do for that reason.”

“I’m quite social, and it can be difficult having to stay in a lot of the time. It is difficult for me, I’m not going to butter it up, but sometimes you can feel like you’re always looking from the outside at other people getting on with their life.

“And I remember getting upset coming into the wedding, and I was like, everybody else is going to move on with their lives and their kids are all gonna grow up and everybody’s going to move on. Sometimes you feel like you’re stuck in time.

“They say you’re a parent until your child is 18, and you teach them to go off into the world and make their own way. But the reality is, I’m a carer for the rest of my life. At times, that is very scary because I worry about what happens to him when I’m gone.”

Erin said she often thinks about her 24-year-old daughter Taylor, whom she had from a previous relationship, as she would be left to care for Harry if anything happened to her or Terry.

“The unsung heroes are the siblings of children with special needs, because they then are being trained to become parents when the parents aren’t there,” she said.

“And they are also taking on that responsibility of being the therapist, being the doctor, being the nurse. There’s been times where Harry hasn’t been great, and Taylor will say, ‘I’ll come home’, because she actually wants to help ease his pain.

“They have a wonderful bond, and it’s so amazing to see. The only person he’ll give a hug to is her. He will only hug her. They have such a unique bond, and she’s actually I’m quite strict with them. It’s funny because they have a different dynamic.

“People don’t want you to have that conversation, people don’t want you to think about what happens to you when you’re not here, but the reality is you have to make provisions for the day that you aren’t here. Right now, me and Terry are trying our best to get Harry to be functioning in the real world.

“I’ve often seen other people comment, ‘Don’t bring the child there, or why would you put a child with sensory overload into those situations?’ The reality of it is, there is going to be times in their life where they are going to be exposed to that.

“Even people in jail need to go out at times, whether it’s a hospital, whether it’s the doctors. These children do need to learn how to be function, so while you might think, ‘Oh, don’t bring them into these situations’.

“We also have to, because we need to build up, bit by bit, small tolerance to the outside world, because the outside world, by the looks of it, it’s not going to change. We’re not making allowances, we’re not making huge strides to be inclusive enough for these children to survive in the world.”

During her own wedding, Erin recalled thinking if Harry would ever get married himself someday.

“There was moments when I was getting married, and this might sound really, really silly, but I was like, ‘Do you think he’ll ever get married?’ I would love that for him, because he’s the most special person in the whole wide world,” she told me.

“And I wonder, because they’re all the things that you wish for your child, that they’re happy, that they’re content, that they’ll meet their people.

“And when you’re shown that you need to take a different road that you’ve never walked before, or anyone I’ve ever known hasn’t walked this path, and now this road is in front of me with a new diagnosis, and it looks dark and it looks scary, and at times it was a road that I didn’t want to go up, and I thought, ‘Why us? Why me?’

“But obviously, as time goes on, you can start seeing a clearer path.”

Life has been non-stop for Erin since her fairytale wedding.

Just days after they tied the knot, she launched her Bridal Collection with BPerfect Cosmetics, which she proudly showed off during our shoot.

She’s also working on bringing out more clothes through her Imperfection brand, and is preparing to jump straight back into Panto season once she returns from her honeymoon.

“None of it was meant to happen like that. But you know what, I definitely think it was a perfect time because it kept me going,” she said.

“To be honest, I keep myself busy like that because that’s a little bit of myself. And that might be selfish, but I do genuinely believe that every parent needs to do something that keeps them feeling like themselves.

“Terry would tell me all the time, ‘Oh, here she goes, 10 balls up in the air then walks off’. And I guess I’m one of those people that I like to do things all the time and try new things. And I think that keeps a part of me alive.

“I definitely work well with that, keeping my creative side, but also doing things that are involved with my life and my family.”

Erin explained that working on her makeup collection had a personal element as lipstick was always a “huge part” of her life.

“I’m from an older generation, I remember my aunties and my ma doing their lipstick. They still do it in the pub. ‘You got a little lippy?’ It’s the first thing they’ll ask. It was always, ‘you never go anywhere without your lipstick’. That is a huge part of my life.

“Interiors, also a huge part of my life. Fashion, house coats, pyjamas, they’re all really part of who I am. So I guess anything that I ever do will always have to be something that I naturally do and fit into my life.

“Because like I said, I have to do things that fit into Harry and to our life because he is like the pinnacle and everybody just walks around him because it has to be like that for us.”

As I mentioned before, Erin has always stayed true to herself, and I’ve always loved how real she is – whether you meet her in person or you’re watching her Instagram Stories.

“I’m not really good at hiding my emotions,” she tells me with a laugh.

“I think I’ve tried to change that for so many years and try and maybe get a hold on that. But the reality is, that is who I am deep down. And I think the most important thing is staying true to who you are.

“Because people can always tell you to be this, or be that, or be this, or be that. But you’re the one that has to sit with yourself. So I think if you can just be yourself, then it doesn’t really matter what your goals are in life. I think they will happen for you.”

“I’m not really good at hiding my emotions”

Looking back at her life, Erin said she wished she could go back to her teenage self and tell her that everything is going to be okay.

“I would love to go back to teenage Erin and tell her that it is all going to work out, and that she is really kind, and she is beautiful. And I guess when I think of younger Erin, I feel sad for her, because it is a real hard age to navigate,” she admitted.

“Your teenage years are so hard to navigate, it’s so difficult. And even back then, we weren’t even aware of anxiety, or how mental health was affected, or how image was affected, and we didn’t even have social media. And I remember trying to navigate my teens, and it was so difficult. It was scary. You didn’t know who you were.”

Erin credited Harry for teaching her so many lessons in life, and said she wouldn’t change her journey for the world.

“He has taught me that I have no time for bulls**t. I actually have no time for bullshit. I just haven’t got the energy. I don’t have the energy for things that don’t matter or people that don’t matter,” she explained.

“And he has taught me to stop caring about what other people think because he is the most important thing to all of us. So he has been the greatest lesson. And I wish that I could have learned that all those years ago.

“But again, the whole journey that I’ve been on, I probably wouldn’t change it for the world. Because I think life is a roller coaster, but I definitely do think that without those highs and lows, you don’t actually discover who you are as a person.”

“Life is a roller coaster, but I definitely do think that without those highs and lows, you don’t actually discover who you are as a person”

It’s this kind of refreshing honesty that leads me to believe Erin would be the perfect subject for her own reality show, and I’m sure many of her followers would agree.

I asked if she’d ever consider allowing cameras into her home for her own show, but Erin admitted she has some reservations about reality TV.

“I get this all the time. I have been approached a few times about reality TV,” she confessed.

“Life has taught me, you never say never, because I feel every time you say never to something, God has this funny way of saying, ‘Oh, well, maybe’. So I think every possibility is open.

“What I do think about reality TV, and I think people probably don’t realise this, is reality TV can spin whatever way they want to spin it. Like the Kardashian’s have done it so well where they’re producers of the show. They edit it themselves.

“So I feel like sometimes, maybe going in at that angle, it’s not always the best because not everybody gets to see you for who you really are.”

“I would have a few things I’d like to do on my bucket list, probably dreams that are so big that I probably would be scared to say them out loud because I’m like, ‘Oh, no, you couldn’t do that’. But I definitely feel like I still have boxes to tick.

“And then every now and again I go, ‘That’s it now, I’m just going to take the foot off the gas, I’m going to relax a little bit’, and then I’ll be like, ‘I can’t do that’.”

Erin isn’t one to shy away from a challenge, and has already appeared on Dancing With The Stars. But could we ever see her on a show like I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here?

“Can you imagine me on that?” she laughed, “When I tell you, I am a chicken s**t.”

Given all I know about Erin’s resilience and courage, I fully disagreed with her, and suggested she would be would be well able for the trials if she faced them head on.

Erin replied: “My mam always says that to me. She’s like, ‘If you had to do it, you would do it. You get this click on you’. But I don’t know what I’d be like with all those spiders and all. I know I’d probably make great TV.”

Erin joked that she would be like Gillian McKeith on the show, the Scottish nutritionist who became infamous for fainting in the jungle back in 2010.

“But then I look at Stacey Solomon on it, she was so nervy, and then was like, ‘No, I’m going to do it’,” she said, before adding: “I don’t know how I’d feel about eating kangaroo balls though. So maybe, maybe not.”

“I do think it’d be interesting though. I think with a thing like that, you never say never.”

One challenge Erin is definitely taking on this year is her return to the Panto stage at the 3Olympia Theatre.

The 43-year-old made her Panto debut back in 2018 after impressing stage bosses with her moves on Dancing With The Stars, and she has become a staple character in the 3Olympia’s Panto every Christmas.

From Friday, 20th December 2024 – Sunday, 5th January 2025, Erin will star in OLLY & POLLY are FREEZIN! alongside the likes of James Patrice and Ryan Andrews.

Erin told me: “Panto, genuinely, is one of the hardest gigs out there, but it’s probably one of the most fulfilling.”

“And there’s been moments in it where I sit and watch the other kids and I’m like, ‘God, I wish Harry could be here’. This year we tried to even get him into my dressing room, and no, he just wouldn’t even step outside the door. Like no way, José. Sometimes he wouldn’t even go into our local shop, even though he’s used to it all the time. So we weren’t even getting him in the door. And that has been challenging in itself.

“But also there’s so much freedom in being on stage. Like it didn’t actually matter what was going on in the the world, I have to stand on that stage, and I have to remember all my lines, and I have to make sure all these kids and parents have the best time ever.”

“And it could be like 10 minutes in a scene, and for that 10 minutes, I genuinely forget about everything because I have no choice. It’s an escape. So even though there was times, I remember being backstage and the producer having to sit with me because Harry wasn’t in a really good place at this time, he was really really sick and it was really scary for us, and I remember the producer sitting at the side of the stage with me like, ‘It’s okay. It’s okay. We have you’.”

I genuinely feel like I could talk to Erin for hours, she’s just one of those people that you could chat to about anything and everything, but I’m aware we need to wrap up our interview soon.

2024 has been an amazing year for Erin, perhaps her best yet, but I’d love to know where she hopes to see herself in the next five years.

“I would love to see myself and Terry, maybe being able to sit back a little bit and be able to relax around our son. So maybe not to be in the fight or flight all the time,” she said.

“So what that would look like for me is maybe Harry being a lot more self-sufficient in himself and maybe a lot more aware of danger. I would love that for us. I would love to see us maybe going out with our families, maybe going on more holidays, maybe finding it a little bit easier to do day to day things with Harry.”

“That’s where I’d really love to see us. That’s where I could go, ‘I didn’t think we’d ever get to this day’. But like that, I never thought he was going to be toilet trained. The little things that he does is huge to us. So that would be my goal.

“I mean, my ultimate dream would be to hear him talk. I’d love to see us in five years, where I’m sitting here saying to you, ‘Kendra, remember the interview we did and Harry was non-verbal. Now he’s full of chat and I can’t shut him up’. That would be amazing.”

“My ultimate dream would be to hear Harry talk”

“But I also have made peace with the fact that if he doesn’t, and if he communicates with us in a way other than verbal, I’ve also made peace with that. I also have accepted that he may never talk for the rest of his life. Like he may never, and that’s all right.

“I’ve come to the stage where I’ve made peace with that. I’ve made peace with the fact that he may need care for the rest of his life. I’ve made peace with the fact that he may never get married or may never have a girlfriend or he may never have his own place or his own kids. I’ve made peace with all that.

“But I would like to see him being more self-sufficient for himself for the days that we aren’t here.”

It’s coming to the end of our interview now, and Erin has talked so passionately about her son, so lovingly about her marriage, and so proud about her career, so I ask her, what’s next?

“I guess I’ve always seen career second,” she confessed, comparing her dedication to being a parent.

“The reason I’m saying that is a lot of things that you would see people having huge success around takes a lot of hard work, and a lot of time commitment. And a lot of business people or people in the spotlight, like that becomes their baby, you know? There’s so much that has to be sacrificed for it, that people don’t see.

“And I think that if Harry was functioning, that would be easier because you’re like, ‘Okay, you can manage it a little bit’. Where Harry needs so much of my time, deep down, I know I couldn’t commit myself fully to being this huge success story because I know how much hard work that would take.

“So career-wise, I would like to see things that would fit into his life, and things that are able to work around his life… I feel like that’s my dream.”

Shoot Credits

Creative Director: Alexandra Ryan
Interview By: Kendra Becker
Photos & Video: Claire Boshell
Styling: Laura Mullet
Hair & Makeup: Jordan Reddy

 

STYLE CREDITS

Cover Shot
Earrings €40 Enchant.ie
Bardot premium top €70 Pretty Little Thing
Layered tulle skirts Mizz Rio

Look Two

Earrings €40 enchant.ie
Two piece Dress €1900 mizzrio.ie
Bow Heels €45 prettylittlething.ie

Look Three

Earrings €40 enchant.ie
Jacket €595 Mizz Rio
Layered tulle skirts €320 each Mizz Rio

Look Four

Earrings €40 Enchant.ie
Necklace charms €75 Enchant.ie
Veil €65 Roisin Dockry
Harper Dress €350 Roisin Dockry
Heels €45 Pretty Little Thing

Look Five

Earrings €40 enchant.ie
Celestial overdress €420 mizzrio.ie
Heels €25 zara.com

Look Six

Earrings €15 lizcollinsboutique.com
Dress € aliciaandchloe.com
Bow Heels €45 prettylittlething.ie