Donna McCaul

Since Saturday night the nation has been glued to "Fáilte Towers" the reality TV show where Irish celebrities have been battling it out to become the host with the most while raising money for charity. Eurovision stars Donna and Joe McCaul underwent two days of training last week before the show started, in order to get used to the daily grind of running a hotel. 'It was a lot harder than I thought,' said Donna. From preparing food to making reservations, from stripping sheets to serving cocktails, these celebs are being worked hard. Donna, who"s still busy gigging around the country, took some time out to chat to Plus. What"s your first memory? Oh, that"s a hard one, there"s a lot of hazy ones. Probably of wheeling Joesph around in a buggy when I could barely reach the handles. When did you first realise you really wanted a career in music? I was always into singing, I can remember from baby infants or first class I always liked singing. Then around the time of the Junior Cert when I was studying music in school I realised that when my friends were talking about careers I wasn"t interested in any of them, I just wanted to sing. Even though my teachers were telling me I needed to do something proper! What"s the last album you bought/downloaded? It was Madonna"s new one "Hard Candy", it"s very good. What"s the last book you read? Don"t remember, I"m not really a big reader. Do you still watch the Eurovision? Yeah I do actually. I thought this year"s one was really good, I was surprised that Dustin didn"t get through because that kind of mad stuff is what the Eurovision is all about now. What"s been your best and worse gig? The best was the Eurovision, that was just amazing, performing in front of so many people. And also I really enjoyed supporting Westlife on their tour with thousands of people in the crowd just screaming. The worst was probably when one night I was singing away but I didn"t know that one of the speakers had got wet, and it blew so we"d no sound. I didn"t know what to do, so I said to the crowd 'I hope you have good ears' and they laughed so I just got on with it. Best advice given to you? Just to be yourself, don"t try to be something you"re not. If you are yourself then you"ll be on the right road in life. If you were Taoiseach for the day, what would you do? Oh I"m not sure, I"d have a million and one things in mind that I"d want to do, I"d change as much as I could. But at the same time I could do nothing and have someone drive me all over the place. I think locally I"d open up a few interesting night-clubs, the night-clubs here are good, but I"d open something different. Favourite holiday destination? Crete two years ago. I went with Joe, my other brother Kenneth and a load of friends, there were 13 of us altogether. I"d a brilliant time, we were out all the time and the weather was good. And we ended up gigging with Paddy Casey who was over doing a few shows, so that was fun. What"s been your biggest thrill in life? It would have to be winning You"re A Star. Looking back now that was deadly, such an achievement. And our mother was so proud of us and it meant so much to her, that was the best bit. What"s your favourite reality TV show? I"m really getting into ones by Gordon Ramsay, I really like Hell"s Kitchen and The F Word which is on now. Also I like watching America"s Next Top Model. Why did you decide to enter Fáilte Towers? When I was asked I was reluctant, but when I heard it was for charity I decided to go for it because I like to do as much charity work as I can and we picked a really worthwhile charity, Suicide Ireland, so I was happy to do it for that alone. And also Joe was really keen to do it as well.