News Information

Make-A-Wish® worldwide is celebrating a global day of wish granting on April 29th.

World Wish Day is designed to inspire people all over the world to share the power of a wish and the difference it makes to an entire family. To support awareness of the World Wish Day campaign many celebrated Irish people will share with the nation their nostalgic childhood wishes over the coming days.

These childhood wishes have been sent to Make-A-Wish from well known people from all areas of Irish life from sport to music and business to media to raise awareness of the power of a wish. Every 25 minutes, the Make-A-Wish Foundation grants the wish of a child with a life-threatening medical condition around the world.

That's more than 20,000 wishes every year. Over 240,000 wishes have been granted since 1980.

In Ireland over 170 wishes will be granted this year and this solely depends on the amazing generosity of the Irish people.

Lorraine Keane: I wished I could be Doris Day....I loved her movies as a child - I still do - and now have the pleasure of sharing them with my little girls. As I got older I realised that 'becoming' Doris was never going to happen, no matter how hard I tried.  My dad believes that my love of Doris Day is the reason I studied journalism and went on to become a TV Presenter.  He tells a story, which I can't remember, of me declaring that one day I would meet her and interview her.  It hasn't happened yet...but I haven't stopped wishing either. 

Jedward:Comment from Jedward - how delighted we are to be ambassadors. We want to get the word out there that when we all contribute we can create something great and that wishes do come true! Make a wish, this is what it’s all about, its personal to us and it means a lot to be ambassadors. It’s so cool; the whole organisation is just amazing.The question is ‘when I was a child our one wish was .....’To meet Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake because we have been lifelong fans and they are our idols.

GAA star: Sean Cavanagh, Tyrone 2 time All-Ireland winner ……numerous All-Stars…..‘As a child my dream was to play basketball for the Chicago Bulls alongside Michael Jordan. As a child, my other wish was to play for Tyrone with PETER CANAVAN, and it came true’

Imelda May, Musician: I WANTED TO BE A TRAPEZE ARTIST IN A CIRCUS, IT SEEMS SO GLAMOROUS AND EXCITING. I ALSO WROTE TO ‘JIM’LL FIX IT’ ONCE. I HAD ALWAYS DREAMED OF MEETING LASSIE. I THOUGHT HE WAS THE BEST DOG IN THE WORLD. 

Ger Gilroy, Sports editor of Newstalk and formerly presenter of Newstalk Breakfast:My wish as a kid was to play hurling for Antrim. Slightly unlikely given that a) I was no good and b) I lived in Kildare. The point was that I'd grown up following the Antrim hurlers exploits (as much as annual mullerings in the All Ireland semis could be called exploits). Although in the mid 1980's up until 1990 they started performing really well, running Cork close one year they scored 7 goals and finally shocking Offaly in ‘89. My mother and aunt had both won All Ireland camogie medals for Antrim and my dad had coached the minors in the late 1970's. I still have his bainisteoir hoody. Now my wish is that I could fit into it. Need to do a bit of exercise for that to happen... Dublin Gaelic Football legend

Ciaran Whelan….:“As a child you wish and dream for all sort so things. However, I have to say, and this may be really obvious, but my wish form a young age was to play for Dublin and pull on the Dublin jersey in Croke Park in front of a packed stadium. I have been so lucky to have had my wish come true on many many occasions and it never got any less special.”

Peter Devlin: Musician The Devlins My wish as a child was to be a marine biologist. I wasn't exactly sure what it meant, but my parents assured me that it was the job title of the man who looked after Flipper, a very intelligent, bottlenose dolphin who was the star of an American TV series of the same name. The marine park 'warden' seemed to spend most of his time swimming with the dolphin and feeding him fish, and that seemed like the perfect job to me. It wasn't until my latter school years that I made the connection between marine 'biologist' and honours biology and science, which made the reality less appealing.

Tom Dunne Newstalk legend:When I was young I wished I could be a singer in a band, so amazingly I actually got what I wanted. As a child I sang a song called Little Devil, but only ever from the safety of the back of the couch. Early teens I graduated to singing and playing guitar whilst watching my reflection in my mother’s china cabinet. Punk rock opened the door to that world for real for me as talent wasn’t as important as the wish to simply do it was. I did eventually become a singer but only after I was fired as the bass player in my first band. It seemed such an unrealistic dream that I refused to believe it could happen. I studied Engineering and only resigned when offered a contract. My boss, when I was resigning, asked me ‘why would Virgin need a Mechanical Engineer?’ Bless his heart.

Bernard Brogan Dublin GAA star:“As a child, my dream and wish was to score a goal into the Hill for the Dubs. You can picture yourself doing it when you are young and I’ve now done it a couple of times and it is a dream come true.  Anything is possible if you put your mind to it” Laura Bermingham TV3 Beauty PresenterI wish to-Meet- Ellen DeGeneres, George Clooney in '08, Oprah in '09 is there nothing this woman can't do?Be- Me but with a better derriere!Go- Tibet for a month or two, but with a lot of thermal underwear!Have- the power to reassure and the ability/superpower to back it up, I've a strong personality trait that needs to fix things for people ;-))

To support World Wish Day and donate to Make-A-Wish Ireland: Donate online Or Donate at your local Bank of Ireland, Account Number 81894009,Sort Code 90-00-84 Check out the childhood wishes of well known Irish people by visiting Face book link .

In addition a global online forum www.worldwishday.org has been launched to celebrate 2010 the launch year of World Wish Day when the foundation celebrates their 30th  anniversary.  For further information and more wishes please contact Sinead Christian PR and Marketing Manager Make-A-Wish sinead@makeawish.ie 01 2052007/0879029523