Christmas Abroad: Christmas build up in Brisbane is "just not the same"

Shane Gallagher is from Daingean and has made his home in Brisbane, the capital city of Queensland on the east coast of Australia, for the past eight years. He met his Brisbane-born wife, Alyce, when he moved to London almost ten years ago, and the couple now have a young son, Niall.

Shane, who works in construction, became a TikTok sensation in June of this year with his hugely-popular singing videos in the cab of his digger, which have amassed millions of likes from fans all over the world. He goes by the name of 'The Digger Dad' and regularly posts highly-entertaining and honest videos of his life in Brisbane.

Although he is happily settled in Australia, Shane admits the thing he misses most about being away from home at Christmas is “not being able to see the Ma and the rest of the family and friends.”

He plans to spend Christmas Day “on the deck eating and drinking” with the close family members they have around them in Brisbane.

His best memory of Christmas at home in Daingean is on the rare occasions when the snow fell “it was just class”, he says. There is no prospect whatsoever of a white Christmas in his new surroundings considering the heat at this time of the year is “outrageous”, according to the Daingean man.

Shane loves the “lifestyle, the weather and the opportunities” that life in Brisbane has given him, but as he approaches his eighth Christmas down under he says the build-up to the big day “is just not the same” as it would be at home.

“There is hardly anything until the shops start playing the music, to be honest.”

He plans to ring in the new year with “a can of Guinness on the couch” and he would like to send greetings to his mother, Roisín in Daingean; his nanny Rosie in Bunsallagh; his brothers Stephen (Edenderry) Declan and Liam, sister Debbie, their kids as well as all his friends and extended relatives.