Donegal nurse and former Miss Universe Ireland winner Grainne Gallanagh has revealed she is to start a new life in Australia.
The Buncrana woman said she has bought a one way ticket and is heading Down Under with boyfriend Ryan next month.
Grainne swapped the glitz and glamour for a role on the frontline at Letterkenny University Hospital during the Covid-19 pandemic.
But now she has told the Sunday World that she is planning the next exciting chapter of her life.
She said “I’m nervous about heading into the unknown. It’s something that I’ve been talking about for years, but with Covid and all the rest I kept putting it off.
“Now I’ve decided to give it a go and see how I get on. I can always come home if it doesn’t work out, but at least I’ll have given it a go.
“These are the things you do when you are in your twenties and I feel that, with Covid, we lost those years and they passed before you knew it. I feel that our generation was robbed of a couple of years where we should have been enjoying our best life.”
Grainne is currently working in a clinic in Derry, but is also a successful social media influencer.
She was also runner-up in the 2020 Dancing With The Stars on RTE.
“I’ve been kept busy between the clinic and media work online,” she says. “I’ve been lucky, so it will be sad to walk away from that.”
She admits that she’s taking a gamble.
“I have nothing lined up, so I don’t know what I’ll do. Everybody says how easy it is over there to get work, so I hope that something will come up. I’m sure there will be opportunities in nursing,” she said.
