Joe Brolly and Laurita Blewitt have welcomed their first child together.
The former GAA star and pundit married podcaster Laurita two years ago and over the weekend became parents to a daughter.
Joe opened up about his new arrival on the Free State podcast, explaining it was an emergency birth but his wife and newborn baby are doing well.
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He described holding his daughter for the first time was "as close to paradise as any human being can get".
"But you sit there with the baby in your arms for three or four hours and it is as close to paradise I think as a human being can get. If you are in the right situation, with the right person," he said.
"It's something that takes you out of yourself and gives you a sense of peace and joy that is hard to communicate with anyone who hasn't had that."
"At one point it got very scary and became an emergency and they couldn't get the baby out. It was a huge collection of doctors and anaesthetists then in the theatre," Joe added.
"Whenever I went in, it looked like the first scene of childbirth - the musical, and me being me, the fear and all that, I cracked a joke which went down like a lead balloon obviously at that stage.
"It's a funny thing. When it all turned out well, they are both bruised and battered, it's as if it never happened. We are very good at putting traumas behind us.
"I still haven't burst out crying yet and I'm not going to on this podcast but it's all very overwhelming. I think also now because I'm older now and have seen a lot of the world, you are able better to roll with it."
Joe and Laurita tied the knot in 2022 in front of 100 family and friends at the Ice House Hotel in Ballina, Mayo.
The RTE pundit is also a dad to five children from his first marriage.
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