![\"Mons](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/002428a7-614.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\nGet ready for your evenings to heat up as First Dates returns to our screens!<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Even with over 75,000 followers, influencer Cloda Scanlon is just like anyone else – struggling with the ever-frustrating dating scene in Ireland. Despite sharing the vast majority of her life online, the bubbly Tipperary native told producers that she was looking for a good match like everyone else.<\/p>\n
“I’m recording every moment of my life, I have done for ten and a half years”, she said. “That helps sometimes with dating but it definitely attracts the wrong kinds as well, sometimes, but I suppose that’s what I signed up for.”<\/p>\n
She added: “It’s actually really exciting for me that I have no idea who’s going to walk through that door.” Having ditched the dating apps that year, she explained that she was ready to meet people “in the wild”.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fresh from a three-day festival, Cloda strode into the First Dates restaurant, followed shortly after by chef and father of three Mons from Waterford. A self-described “fun person to be around”, he was looking for someone to match his energy.<\/p>\n
And a woman who looked like his teenage forever-crush Kim Kardashian wouldn’t hurt, either.<\/p>\n
The pair swapped stories of enduring situationships and break-ups, with Cloda telling producers, “it’s rough out there”. She told Mons about her year of “dating to date”, enjoying going out without putting pressure on herself to meet her soulmate.<\/p>\n
Mons won brownie points quickly for noticing her hair and sharing his chips, while Cloda kept Mons laughing.<\/p>\n
It was clear from early on that the date was a match, with both swapping stories about work and Mons’ experience being a young father. When asked if they wanted to meet again, it was an easy “yes”.<\/p>\n
Watch First Dates Ireland on Thursdays at 9.35pm on RT\u00c92 or catch up on RT\u00c9 Player.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Get ready for your evenings to heat up as First Dates returns to our screens! Season 11 of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-379053","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379053","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=379053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}