![\"Former](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/4834155_3_articleinlinemobile_Donncha_20O_27Callaghan-15.jpg\" "\\"Former")
Former Munster and Irish rugby international Donncha O’Callaghan pictured relaxing in the penthouse of the Dean Hotel, Cork. Picture: David Creedon<\/p>\n\u201cTo be honest, we had a bromance, myself and Trimbie. It was great hanging around with him again.\u201d Donncha O\u2019Callaghan is waxing lyrical about his former Ireland rugby teammate Andrew Trimble, who is also his opposite number on a new trio of coaches on a revamped Ireland\u2019s Fittest Family.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a bromance of rivals though, with the new format of the upcoming 13th season of the competitive show pitting OGs O\u2019Callaghan, Anna Geary, and reigning champ Davy Fitzgerald against a coaching team of Trimble, former Dublin GAA star Michael Darragh MacAuley, and Paralympic swimming champion Ellen Keane.<\/p>\n
This season will be O\u2019Callaghan\u2019s ninth, having made his debut on season five back in 2017, when he coached the Beirne family to victory. He triumphed again two years later with the McSharrys in 2019, and on season 11 with the Stratfords in 2023.<\/p>\n
These days, he says, he doesn\u2019t need to show participating families the ropes. \u201cStraight away as soon as you meet them, they can all tell you how long they can hang for, wall squat,\u201d says the former Munster and Ireland lock.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m noticing it more and more as it\u2019s gone on. Before, you were explaining the events to them. Now, they\u2019re explaining them to you.\u201d Regardless, the course can still be a rude awakening, he says, with families getting \u201ca slap in the face by the intensity of it\u201d.<\/p>\n
The IFF format shake-up has meant each coach now has two families rather than the four they had to manage previously, and the change has been beneficial, he says, resulting in quicker bonding and buy-in between coaches and their competing families.<\/p>\n
For the uninitiated, the coaches\u2019 role is more along the lines of a mentorship than the fitness-training role their title might suggest, but O\u2019Callaghan admits that getting the families to take his advice isn\u2019t always easy, with blood proving thicker than water, initially at least.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe family know each other way better than you\u2019ll ever know them and you are trying to stir an emotion or trying to get a response and you can only get it if you get a little bit of buy-in. That is the difficult side of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Callaghan has figured out the best way to get that buy-in early on. \u201cI think always being sincere is the difference, really. If the family see that you genuinely care about them and you want them to do well, you tend to get a bit better buy-in.\u201d<\/p>\n
The family dynamic can throw curveballs too, such as when mam or dad have to hear their offspring say \u2018do you know what? You are wrong here\u2019, he says, or when teenage lads \u201cfeel bulletproof\u201d and think they can \u201clight it up\u201d solo, compromising their team as a result.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Feigning exasperation, O\u2019Callaghan groans \u201cgive me the moms every day of the week!\u201d but you know he\u2019s got those teens\u2019 backs, because he\u2019s been that \u2018I think I\u2019m bulletproof\u2019 soldier too.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was lucky enough to have kind of brothers around me that managed [my expectations] a little bit at a certain age.\u201d<\/p>\n
Curveballs aside, O\u2019Callaghan says the depth of the bond he\u2019s witnessed between family members on the show is \u201cwhat you try to get to with elite sport, that level of care\u2026 The beautiful thing is, you never have to question it. That family dynamic is quite special.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Callaghan\u2019s own family dynamic has sparked a whole new career for him as a children\u2019s author, with Fun Day Fiasco, the second book in his Disaster Dad series \u2014 which he pegs as \u201ccloser to fact than my autobiography\u201d \u2014 hitting the shelves a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cA kid won\u2019t do a bad page, so you do have to hit the mark with it,\u201d he says of his demanding audience. He\u2019s obviously doing something right as both books have been bestsellers, with the latest iteration zooming to the top of the children\u2019s books bestseller list in jig time.<\/p>\n
Former Munster and Irish rugby international Donncha O’Callaghan pictured relaxing in the penthouse of the Dean Hotel, Cork. Picture: David Creedon<\/p>\n
The O\u2019Callaghan kids \u2014 Donncha and his wife, Jennifer Harte, who he married in 2009, have four, Sophie, Anna, Robin, and Jake \u2014 always loved bedtime storytime, but O\u2019Callaghan noticed they were often more interested in anecdotes about his own mishaps or mistakes than another reading of The Gruffalo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey nearly want to see a vulnerability to you. They want to hear the times where you got it wrong and you were scared or you didn\u2019t know how you were going to work it out,\u201d the telling of which, he says, lead to \u201cgluey moments\u201d that allowed him to show \u201cDad doesn\u2019t always have the answer or Dad gets it wrong a little bit\u201d.<\/p>\n
His storytelling provided a safe space in which his kids knew \u201cI\u2019ve got you. You\u2019re totally safe\u201d but also got an insight into the fact that their dad \u201cisn\u2019t a superhero or bulletproof, that he makes an eejit of himself as well\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just think it\u2019s okay for parents to feel you don\u2019t always have the answers,\u201d he says. \u201cYou know what I mean? You don\u2019t always have to get it right.\u201d (O\u2019Callaghan, who is one of five siblings, was only five years old when his own dad, Hughie, died prematurely at the age of 40.)<\/p>\n
He has been \u201cblown away\u201d by how well the books have been received. \u201cAnd I\u2019ll be honest with you, like you\u2019re lucky to do stuff in rugby, but that\u2019s right up there for me in terms of achievements. I\u2019m really proud of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The\u00a046-year-old has tried his hand at many things since his retirement from professional rugby in April 2018, a career which he loved and had the foresight to call time on at the right time, from a physical standpoint.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMy body feels amazing,\u201d he says. \u201cI was lucky to do something I love for so long.\u201d<\/p>\n
A post-rugby life of leisure was never an option. \u201cRugby is great, but we all know coming away from this that the money simply isn\u2019t good enough that you will not have to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bishopstown native was already on Ireland\u2019s Fittest Family prior to retirement, and has since appeared on various TV networks as a pundit, but is doing that \u201cless and less\u201d, partly because he isn\u2019t a fan of the modern-day push for a focus to be on the negative, regardless of a player\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI found it hard, with the framing of stuff, to throw bouquets because all anyone wanted was hand grenades,\u201d he says. \u201cFor me, it\u2019s important to stay true to who you are as well. I\u2019m upbeat and positive and I want to be that. I have no problem calling it as I see it, but I just sometimes found it really difficult to be positive because they weren\u2019t looking for it. They\u2019re looking for the next soundbite.\u201d<\/p>\n
He found breakfast radio a better fit, although the learning curve proved steep. \u201cI was oblivious for how little I knew walking in there; oh my God, I was embarrassed,\u201d he says of his baptism of fire into the level of tech knowledge and multitasking required in co-hosting the 2FM Breakfast show with Doireann Garrihy and Carl Mullan.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Callaghan thrives on challenge, though. He likes hard things \u2014 \u201cI have that kind of growth mindset of wanting to get better and improve\u201d \u2014 but doing three hours of must-be-upbeat live radio and having to get up \u201cat three in the morning if I was in Dublin, or five if I was in Cork\u201d is \u201cgruelling\u201d by anyone\u2019s standards and he made the decision to step away to focus on other projects (he co-hosts The Offload podcast with former Ireland teammate Tommy Bowe, is a Unicef ambassador and a sought-after corporate speaker).<\/p>\n
One thing the radio show underlined for him is his glass-half-full nature. \u201cI don\u2019t think you can bullshit that at that time,\u201d he says of the impossibility of faking positivity when you\u2019ve been up since 3am.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know I am a positive, upbeat person. I look for the good in things and try to see that always. I do manage myself though, in that I hang around with those type of people as well, because I can find, if I hang around with \u2018wet duffle coats\u2019, I can get down. So I\u2019m lucky that I keep my circle of like-minded people who see the fun and the joy in [life].\u201d<\/p>\n
Right now, he\u2019s working on book three of Disaster Dad, andthinking ahead to next year\u2019s Fittest Family. His biggest concern at retirement was going from \u201cknowing what I was having for breakfast in a month\u2019s time\u201d to the uncertainty of a life outside of professional sport, but he\u2019s found a groove that fits, and six years on, he\u2019s \u201ca little bit more comfortable\u201d with the unknown aspect of his multi-hyphenate career. He\u2019s found his feet and he\u2019s thriving.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis might sound a little bit cocky or arrogant, but [I\u2019m more comfortable] backing myself that I\u2019ll be all right. I\u2019m confident in myself that I\u2019ll be okay. \u201d You have to back yourself, I say.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou do. You do. You a hundred percent do.\u201d<\/p>\n