How I Met My Partner: A missing text almost ended love story for Cork couple

LUKE McGrath had a crush on his now-wife Niamh Kerrins-McGrath when they were teenagers. Ten years later, they almost missed out on a first date due to a technological miscommunication.

Luke, who works as a political advisor to Sinn Féin TD Donnchadh O’Laoighaire, told The Echo, “when Donnchadh got elected in 2016, he had a thank you night for people on his team, and councillor Fiona Kerrins, Niamh’s sister was there.

“We got talking, and Fiona was asking me what age I was, was I single, saying ‘I have a sister your age and she’s single as well’,” he said, adding that he texted her the next morning asking for Niamh’s number.

“We were texting for two or three days, it was going well, and this is where it gets a bit unusual — I said would you like to go for a drink this Friday and I got nothing back. Not even a no, just totally ghosted.

“My pride was a bit hurt, so I didn’t text her again,” he said.

Luke said that a few weeks later he was up in Dublin for the party Ard Fheis and Fiona asked how things were going with Niamh, and when he told her he’d been ghosted, Fiona was shocked.

She got onto her sister, and Niamh explained “I did text back but that message disappeared into the atmosphere. I thought he texted me, asked me out, I agreed and then he didn’t text me back.”

When Fiona text, she got onto Luke again asking why he was telling people she ignored him, screenshots were exchanged, and the matter was resolved, she said, “so we said we’d go out the weekend coming and went to Mutton Lane for our first date.”

They were able to laugh about the situation, and recently celebrated their eighth anniversary.

“We just kind of clicked straight away and got serious pretty quick,” Niamh said.

“I found out months later that when we were teenagers, 15, 16, he had a crush on me and had a friend of mine he was always asking about me, but I had no interest.

“He claims he didn’t realise it was me, nearly ten years later!”

They got engaged in 2019.

“We used to go on spins down to Crosshaven House, and I always said I’d love to stay there, then he just texted me one Monday asking if I could take a half day Friday so we could go,” Niamh said.

Luke said he had planned to propose at Weaver’s Point but it started to rain, “so then I was panicking and I did it in our room. She said yes.”

They had to delay their wedding a year due to Covid, marrying in December 2022, in a humanist ceremony in Triskel, followed by a reception in Vienna Woods.

They went to Cuba on their honeymoon the in January.

Niamh said, “We got home on the Tuesday, and the Wednesday I got pregnant — we were planning on having kids straight away but we didn’t think it would happen as quickly as that!”

The couple now live in Lower Pouladuff Road with their son Culann, with Niamh working in IT, as an analyst for Cork County Council.

Luke is hopeful to get elected to Cork City Council in June.

“I put myself forward because I don’t see many people from my generation on the council. A voice for the generation who have to put their lives on hold, forced to emigrate or living in their parent’s box rooms.”

He worked with Citizen’s Information for four years and liked helping people and empowering them, but said “one of the negatives was that you could only provide them with the information.

“If someone was not entitled to a disability payment, you had to tell them the bad news, but politics is a way of changing the system and making it more inclusive.”