Donal Skehan

Donal Skehan
Born (1986-06-03) 3 June 1986
Howth, Dublin, Ireland
Residence Los Angeles
Occupation
  • Television personality
  • presenter
  • food writer
  • YouTuber
  • singer
Years active 2006—present
Spouse(s)
Sofie Larsson (m. 2015)
Musical career
Genres Pop
Instruments Vocals
Years active 2006–2010
Labels MIG Live
Associated acts Streetwize, Industry
Website www.donalskehan.com

Donal Skehan (born 3 June 1986) is an Irish television personality, presenter (specialising in food programmes), food writer, cook, photographer and former singer. He is known for his television series, cookbooks, and popular YouTube channel. Skehan was also a member of the boy band Streetwize. As vocalist with Industry he had two No. 1 singles with them on the Irish Singles Chart in 2009.

Early life

His parents are in the food industry, running their own food distribution company and having grown up in Howth, County Dublin,[1] Skehan attended Sutton Park School and went on to study media at Dublin Business School.[2][1]

Television and cooking career

Television personality

Skehan worked as an announcer on the Irish entertainment speciality channel Bubble Hits, broadcasting music and entertainment news and celebrity gossip segments.

Food author and presenter

An avid food enthusiast, Skehan started a blog in 2007 called Good Mood Food that evolved into a cookbook.[2] After many appearances on television, and giving of live demonstrations at social events and shows, he was featured in his own weekly food programme, Kitchen Hero, on RTÉ One that was launched on 16 May 2011. In 2011, he published a cookbook based on the television series, Home Kitchen Hero – Bringing Cooking Back Home.[3] A second series and a Christmas special were aired in 2012. UKTV network Good Food began airing the show in April 2012. The show is now in its sixth year of production.

Skehan became a co-presenter and judge on Junior MasterChef on the BBC in 2012, appearing alongside John Torode.[4]

In 2013, after appearing on Jamie Oliver's YouTube channel, Foodtube, Skehan launched his own dedicated YouTube channel which has since grown to nearly 700,000 subscribers.[5]

Skehan presented a new series for Food Network, Follow Donal, which saw him explore Vietnam in a four-part series and then went on to visit ten European cities in the second installment of the series which aired in the autumn of 2015. Skehan is also appearing in the Swedish food programme Mitt kök on TV4 where he speaks Swedish.[6] Skehan is currently one of a number of rotating guest presenters for Saturday Kitchen on BBC One and has hosted six editions of the show to date.

Music career

2006: Streetwize

Skehan was interested very early in music. In 2006, he became part of the global/international boy band project Streetwize (alongside Irish Lee Mulhern (later known as Lee Matthews), English Lee Hutton and Swedish Jonathan Fagerlund). The original members made a tour in Ireland, UK, Sweden, and appeared on the US television station CN8,[7] a cable television station where they performed "Room in Your Heart" in a morning show hosted by Greg Coy.[8] Skehan and Jonathan Fagerlund were disenchanted with the progress of the band and left early to be replaced by Venezuelan Antonio Jones and American Kyle Carpenter. Streetwize eventually folded without any hits.

2008 Irish Eurosong preliminaries for Eurovision Song Contest

On 23 February 2008, Skehan took part in Eurosong 2008 in a bid to represent Ireland in the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Double Cross My Heart".[9][10] It was a pop song composed by Joel Humlen, Oscar Gorres and Charlie Mason, and performed by Skehan with two male and two female back-up dancers, as well as a male back-up singer.[11][12] Skehan was one of the Final 6, alongside Dustin the Turkey, Maja, Leona Daly, Liam Geddes and Marc Roberts; with Dustin the Turkey winning with the song "Irelande Douze Pointe".

Industry

Skehan (right) with other Industry band members in 2009

In 2009, Skehan joined the Irish band Industry alongside the English Lee Hutton (his former bandmate in Streetwize) and Irish girl members Michele McGrath and Morgan Deane.[1][2] Industry had success in the Irish charts including two chart-topping singles "My Baby's Waiting" in June 2009 and "Burn" in August of the same year on the Irish Singles Chart. In 2009, they were also a supporting act for The Pussycat Dolls at Fitzgerald Stadium.[2] Later Industry single releases like "In Your Arms", "My Mistake", "Drown in the Music" and "Kill the DJ" did not chart. The band broke up in 2010.

Personal life

In June 2015 he married Sofie Larsson in Dublin City Hall followed by a reception in Lisnavagh House in County Carlow and had their honeymoon in Ravello on Italy's Amalfi Coast.[13] In April 2016, Skehan and his wife moved to Los Angeles.[14]

In June 2017, the couple announced that they were expecting their first child.[15]

Bibliography

  • 2009: Good Mood Food: Simple, Healthy Homecooking![16]
  • 2011: Kitchen Hero: Bringing Cooking Back Home[3]
  • 2012: Kitchen Hero: Great Food For Less[17]
  • 2013: Home Cooked[18]
  • 2014: The Pleasures of the table: Rediscovering Theodora FitzGibbon[19]
  • 2015: Fresh[20]
  • 2016: Eat. Live. Go – Fresh Food Fast[21]

Media

  • 2014–present: Feast: A Dinner Journal – quarterly food magazine[22]

Discography

Singles

Solo
  • "Double Cross My Heart" (2008)
As part of Industry
  • "My Baby's Waiting" (2010) (No. 1 on the Irish Singles Chart)
  • "Burn" (2009) (No. 1 on the Irish Singles Chart)
  • "In Your Arms" (2009)
  • "My Mistake" (2009)
  • "Drown in the Music" (2010)
  • "Kill the DJ" (2010)

References

  1. 1 2 3 Smith, Andrea (28 October 2013). "TV chef Donal Skehan's recipe for love". Independent.ie. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 O'Rourke, Frances (28 January 2012). "First Encounters". The Irish Times. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
  3. 1 2 Skehan, Donal (2011). Kitchen Hero: Bringing Cooking Back Home. Collins. ISBN 978-0007383023. Archived from the original on 10 July 2015. Retrieved 9 July 2015.
  4. ↑ Skehan, Donal (4 October 2012). "Junior MasterChef!". Donal Skehan. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
  5. ↑ "Donal Skehan". YouTube. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
  6. ↑ "Donal Skehan – irländsk kock i Mitt kök" (in Swedish). Mitt kök. Retrieved 13 November 2015.
  7. ↑ CN8 performance and interview with Streetwize band members including Donal Skehan
  8. ↑ Performance of Streetwize including Donal Skehan on CN8
  9. ↑ Presentation of Donal Skehan and the writers of "Double Cross My Heart" on YouTube
  10. ↑ Viniker, Barry (19 February 2008). "Ireland: Donal Skehan speaks to esctoday.com". ESCToday. Archived from the original on 21 February 2008. Retrieved 25 September 2008.
  11. ↑ Eurosong 2008 (23 February 2008). Radio Telefís Éireann. Retrieved on 27 September 2008.
  12. ↑ Irish Eurovision site interview with Donal Skehan Archived 4 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine.
  13. ↑ Hutch, Eleanore (2 July 2015). "Hello sunshine!' Donal Skehan shares snap from lavish honeymoon with wife Sofie". evoke.ie.
  14. ↑ Brady, Sasha (15 February 2016). "Donal Skehan bids emotional farewell to 'little Howth home' as he prepares for new life in LA". Independent.ie. Retrieved 30 July 2016.
  15. ↑ Skehan, Donal (12 June 2017). "Life is about to change FOREVER!". YouTube. Retrieved 14 June 2017.
  16. ↑ Skehan, Donal (2010). Good Mood Food: Simple Healthy Homecooking. Cork: Mercier Press. ISBN 978-1856356299. Archived from the original on 10 July 2015. Retrieved 9 July 2015.
  17. ↑ Skehan, Donal (2012). Kitchen Hero: Great Food for Less. Collins. ISBN 978-0007415502. Archived from the original on 10 July 2015. Retrieved 9 July 2015.
  18. ↑ Skehan, Donal (2013). Home Cooked. HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. ISBN 978-0007518289. Retrieved 9 July 2015.
  19. ↑ FitzGibbon, Theodora (2014). The Pleasures of the Table: Rediscovering Theodora FitzGibbon. Gill & Macmillan Ltd. ISBN 978-0717159673. Archived from the original on 10 July 2015. Retrieved 9 July 2015.
  20. ↑ "Fresh". Donal Skehan. Retrieved 9 January 2016.
  21. ↑ "Eat.Live.Go". Donal Skehan. Retrieved 2017-02-08.
  22. ↑ "Feast: A Dinner Journal". Donal Skehan. Retrieved 9 January 2016.
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