![\"Lucy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/lucy7.jpg\")
Lucy Kennedy Sends Love to friends near and far with An Post. Pic: Leon Farrell \/ Photocall Ireland<\/p>\n
Her father John, who was a talented pianist and composer, is now 90 and has been living in a nursing home close to Lucy for the past three years. <\/p>\n
‘All I see now is how the small things are so big,’ she says, while chatting as an ambassador for An Post’s Send Love this Christmas. ‘During the year, if Dad gets a card from a friend, we might open it and read it out for him. I see his eyes light up, and it means so much to him, especially since a lot of his friends have passed.’<\/p>\n
![\"Lucy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Virgin-Media-Autumn-schedule-launch-2025-10.jpg\")
Lucy Kennedy at the Virgin Media Television new season schedule launch. Pic: Brian McEvoy<\/p>\n
Her dad doesn’t have dementia, she explains, but physically it became unsafe for him to live alone. However, Lucy admits that making the decision to move her father into a nursing home was ‘searingly difficult’ and it’s something that we need more help and support with in Ireland.<\/p>\n
‘We were afraid of him falling and we looked and researched for so long and found a place where he really loves,’ she says. ‘They are fantastic there. But we’ve all seen Prime Time [the RT\u00c9 documentary on Leas Cross], so we really went into a lot of detail making that choice. <\/p>\n
‘Getting a parent into a nursing home is very traumatic for everyone involved and we have to speak about it more because sometimes older people are forgotten.<\/p>\n
‘And at one point, they were you and me, and we will be them. We should all get more help I think in this country, it’s a really hard thing to find nursing home care. <\/p>\n
![\"Lucy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/lucy.jpg\")
Lucy Kennedy and her dad on her wedding day. Pic: Lucy Kennedy<\/p>\n
‘Some people are at home and are living at home on zimmer frames, possibly endangering themselves. They are on a waiting list to continue their lives,’ she adds.<\/p>\n
\u2018Dad’s mind is sharp but his body isn’t, and that must be a horrible thing for a person to come to terms with. Sometimes he’ll say things like, “Oh, when I get out of here,”‘ she says, her voice trailing off. ‘Initially, he missed his house and that part was really hard.’<\/p>\n
Still, Lucy finds comfort in their closeness. ‘We are like peas in a pod,’ she says, describing him as a creative soul. He’s a former Eurovision songwriter and brilliant musician who, although he can no longer play the piano, enjoys music and spending time with his family.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Capture_f3f31c.jpg\")
Pic: Lucy Kennedy\/Instagram<\/p>\n
‘I’ll miss him on Christmas Day, but we called in last night and had a glass of wine together,’ she smiles. ‘I see him on Sundays and various times of the week.’<\/p>\n
It’s this stage of mid-life – parenting children while caring for elderly parents – that Lucy describes as particularly heavy, with such shifting dynamics.<\/p>\n
‘I’ve always asked Dad for advice,’ she says. ‘That’s the nature of the relationship. So when we were trying to look after Dad getting into the home, you become the parent almost. It’s a strange thing to navigate.’<\/p>\n
Lucy herself is a parent to her three children, Jack, 16, Holly, 13, and nine-year-old Jess, whom she shares with husband Richard Governey. <\/p>\n
![\"Stars](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/VIPIrelandImage29867.jpg\")
Lucy Kennedy and Richard Governey. Pic: VIPIreland.com<\/p>\n
As families will know, this time of year is particularly busy, and it looks like 2026 will be a bumper year for Lucy as well, with lots of new projects in the pipeline.<\/p>\n
This includes another season of Living With Lucy and Lucy’s first adult fiction book. ‘Not that kind of adult fiction,’ she says cheekily.<\/p>\n
Lucy is an ambassador for An Post’s Send Love this Christmas. Monday is the latest posting date to guarantee delivery of letters within the Republic of Ireland for Christmas Day<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lucy Kennedy is known for her open and honest chats on TV, and at 50, admits that she’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-201940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}