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IRISH INDEPENDENT’ JOURNALIST Barry Egan is Ireland’s leading social diarist, chronicling the adventures of Ireland’s celebrities and socialites in near obsessive detail every week.

Want to know what celebrity was spotted in House this week? Or who is off on their holidays to Marbella? Just read Barry Egan’s column.

One of Barry Egan’s favourite turns of phrase is ‘love’s young dream’. Over the years, he has used the phrase on multiple occasions to describe celebrity couples.

Let’s take a look back, shall we?

1. Johnny Ronan and Glenda Gilson, 2nd August 2006

Mark Stedman / Photocall Ireland Mark Stedman / Photocall Ireland / Photocall Ireland

They appeared the very essence of love’s young dream (once you discount the age difference, etc) as they enjoyed the U2 concert together on the Saturday. I won’t even joke that they were singing The Sweetest Thing together but they seemed in fine fettle…

2. Model Roz Lipsett and her ex-boyfriend Gavin Kilduff, 16th December 2007

Leon Farrell / Photocall Ireland Leon Farrell / Photocall Ireland / Photocall Ireland

… when I met them at the Water Angels White Tie and Diamonds Ball in the Finca de Concepcion in Marbella last July, I thought they seemed like a very normal young couple indeed, made for each other even. But love’s young dream, sadly, wasn’t to last.

3. Donna McCaul (of Donna & Joe) and her girlfriend Lauren, 17th August 2008

Sasko Lazarov / Photocall Ireland Sasko Lazarov / Photocall Ireland / Photocall Ireland

In the meantime, love’s young dream — sapphic or otherwise — are off to find a television they can sit in front of to watch a certain reality TV show. In truth, Donna and Lauren’s love is more real than anything that came out of Failte Towers that night.

4. Andrea Corr and Dermot Desmond’s son, 7th June 2009

Sam Boal Sam Boal

WAS Andrea Corr on a bridal recce at a friend’s wedding in Italy two weeks ago? She and Brett Desmond, to whom she got engaged on Christmas Day in her future father-in-law Dermot’s Sandy Lane Hotel in Barbados, were love’s young dream at a high-society wedding in Florence in May.

5. Laura Whitmore and Danny O’Reilly, 16th April 2012

Sasko Lazarov / Photocall Ireland Sasko Lazarov / Photocall Ireland / Photocall Ireland

They are meeting Danny’s parents for dinner later. She is wearing a watch he got her for Christmas. He asked, did she want a fancy- schmancy watch. She said no, she just wanted a cheap kid’s watch with a funny face. So she got one from him, she says, one half of love’s young dream. 

She is one of the nation’s top models and a regular on TV3’s Ireland AM and he is a trendy singer and I will resist the urge to say they have been making sweet music together. On a romantic break away from it all in the Canaries. Andrew — who sang on The Voice Of Ireland last year and was among the final five artists on that infamous Late Late Show showdown earlier this year for the 2014 Eurovision — and Alli are love’s young dream.

7. Gay Byrne and his wife, 15th June 2014

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Love’s young dream would, remembers Gay, go “to dress dances in the Gresham Hotel.”

8. Oliver Callan and his boyfriend, 7th July 2014

For the time being, Oliver lives on his own-some in Blackrock. Love’s Young Dream, I say, don’t live together. “That step is coming,” Oliver hints. “We’re still thinking about it. He doesn’t want to be in the media because of me.”

9. FAI Chief Executive John Delaney and his girlfriend Emma English, 27th October 2014

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Emma’s beau, FAI main man John Delaney, was in Tipperary. Love’s Young Dream did, however, go together to the black-tie Entrepreneur of the Year awards in CityWest on Thursday night.

10. Former Republic of Ireland international Niall Quinn’s daughter and her boyfriend, May 25th 2015

Gareth Chaney / Photocall Ireland! Gareth Chaney / Photocall Ireland! / Photocall Ireland!

I ask Love’s Young Dream about when they first met. “We met for the first time when we were about 15. We were both in school in Kildare,” says Ashley. He went to Newbridge College and she to Gael-Cholaiste Chill Dara. (“I hadn’t a word of Irish going in, but I am now fluent and adore the language now,” she says.)

11. Restaurateur Ann Marie Nohl and an architect named Ken Edmondson, June 8th 2015

Indeed love’s young dream Ann-Marie and Ken have just got back from a short break in Marbella in southern Spain. It must be serious if they are jetting to Marbs so soon into their romance.

“He is an architect,” Ann-Marie told me, adding, “So he is right up my avenue. You know how I love design and style,” she said.

12. Jennifer Zamparelli (née Maguire) and her husband, September 21st 2015

They now have a six-month-old baby, Florence, and live love’s young dream in the aforesaid leafy hipster haven of Ranelagh.

13. Restaurateur Ann Marie Nohl and, once again, architect Ken Edmondson, 28th September 2015

Note: this time, Barry disparagingly refers to the couple as ‘love’s not-so-young dream’.

So, Ann Marie and Ken are very much in love, which is the reason for the blonde’s metaphysical glow. Be that as it may, love’s not-so-young-dream are not as yet living together.

14. Former Miss Ireland Aoife Walsh and a man referred to only as “dashing Gary” and “gorgeous Gaz”, November 23rd 2015

Of course, the amorous adventures of love’s young dream didn’t stop there. Last weekend they attended a wedding in Castle Durrow Hotel in Carlow.

15. Marty Whelan and his wife, December 14th 2015

Sasko Lazarov / Photocall Ireland Sasko Lazarov / Photocall Ireland / Photocall Ireland

Not quite Love’s Young Dream, Marty Whelan and his wife Maria visited a hotspot closer to home on Wednesday night. They had dinner-a-deux in Rita Crosbie’s Cafe Bar H in Grand Canal Plaza in Dublin.

16. Made in Chelsea star Nicola Hughes and her boyfriend/Made in Chelsea co-star Alex Mytton, January 18th 2016

They met in the Naas Court Hotel in Co Kildare in 2014, and almost instantly became love’s young dream, with holidays in Marbs and Barbados — on board a private yacht, naturally.

17. Miriam O’Callaghan’s daughter and her fiancée, 17th April 2016

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Someone who knows Fiachra well described him thus: “He’s a very nice guy. Played football for Galway.” I might go further and describe him and his fiancée as Love’s Young Dream incarnate.

18. The Horslips’ Barry Devlin and his wife Caroline Erskine, 23rd May 2016

James Horan / RollingNews.ie James Horan / RollingNews.ie / RollingNews.ie

Last weekend, Horslips founder Barry Devlin brought his beautiful other half Caroline Erskine to the Hebrides for a romantic getaway.

The director-of-the-moment with The Bloody Irish -a musical about 1916 Easter Rising that wowed Broadway – doubtless took every opportunity to break into song with Caroline as they walked around the Hebrides like love’s young dream.

19. Former Miss Ireland Aoife Walsh and her other half, now referred to as ‘solicitor Gary,’ 8th August 2016

Former Miss Ireland Aoife Walsh, below, celebrated a significant event  – calm down, a birthday not a wedding – last week with her significant other, solicitor Gary, in Santorini. My Deep Throat also told me that Love’s Young Dream were in the Hamptons a couple of weeks ago. And why not?

20. Bob Geldof and his wife Jeanne Marine, 17th October 2016

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Bob ‘n’ Jeanne, who were staying in the Westbury hotel, were the embodiment of not-so-young-love’s dream as they enjoyed their chic collation a deux.

21. Blaise O’Donnell and her boyfriend Stephen O’Hara, 31st October 2016

Leah Farrell / RollingNews.ie Leah Farrell / RollingNews.ie / RollingNews.ie

Love’s young dream were in California last week being characteristically all loved-up. The young Irish beauty formerly of Gorse Hill mansion in Killiney and dapper Stephen were at a San Francisco 49ers game last weekend.

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