Get ready for your evenings to heat up as First Dates returns to our screens!
Season 11 of the beloved dating series continued tonight with eight hopeful romantics taking their seats at the Gibson Hotel, looking for love, romance, connection and at the very least a nice meal.
For Jack, 27, from Cork, he had one clear objective in mind when he walked into the restaurant: find someone who “loves love” as much as he does.
Despite never being in a long term relationship before, or having said ‘I love you’, Jack is something of an expert in the realm of love, having become a celebrant so he could officiate his mother’s second marriage to his step-dad.
Jack
His dream, he jokes, is to be dating someone “so hot” that when people see them walking down the street together, they think he’s either very rich or very funny.
For “giggly” Marion, 28, from Limerick, her track record for dating isn’t very successful – her friends have even formed a group chat to vet her choices – but someone who can make her laugh is up there.
There were plenty of giggles passing between the two during their date, as they swapped stories of situationships and family. While talking about where they work, Marion opened up about her especially deep link to her workplace.
She explained that she worked for Barretstown, the charity for children with severe illlnesses, having joined the team after graduating college without planning to be there as long. She quickly fell in love with the work.
“It’s always the good that you can do that outweighs anything else, outweighs the long days, the long hours, the frustrations that you might run into”, she said.
She told producers that her sister was diagnosed with MPS (Mucopolysaccharidoses), a rare genetic condition. She sadly passed away in 2008, and Marion’s family heard about the charity around that time, particularly their bereavement program. There, they met “22 other incredible families who had also lost a child through serious illness”, she said.
“It was like having your eyes opened for the first time, that other people can fully understand and grasp what you and your family are going through.”
“It still holds a really special place in my heart”, she told Jack.
Watch First Dates Ireland on Thursdays at 9.35pm on RTÉ2 or catch up on RTÉ Player.