Holy cow! Donal Skehan's Bloom kitchen disaster is a cracker

Extra.ie​

01-06-2025

TV chef Donal Skehan was in smashing form at Bord Bia Bloom yesterday, adding the cherry on top of his 'many' kitchen calamities.
He was in the middle of a cookery demonstration at the gardening and food festival in the Phoenix Park when a glass oven door broke into pieces in his hand.
Skehan, who soldiered on to whip up a Korean chicken dish, told Extra.ie afterwards: 'My biggest fear was that the glass was hot, it went all down my shirt, all down my top.' Donal Skehan, Irish TV personality and presenter, breaks the oven door while demonstrating at Bloom 2025. © Michael Chester.
Thankfully, nobody was hurt by the flying shards, and the accident provided the chef with plenty of material for the rest of the demonstration, which was thoroughly enjoyed by the amused audience.
'It had rained previously, so we've never had a more packed demo tent – of course – to witness it,' Skehan laughed.
'The thing I learned in all my years on television is that whatever goes wrong, you keep on cracking on. I've had many kitchen disasters, and I think this definitely tops it. There's nothing like something going wrong in front of 400 people.' Donal Skehan, Irish TV personality and presenter, breaks the oven door while demonstrating at Bloom 2025. © Michael Chester.
The Dublin-born chef is a regular presenter on BBC One's Saturday Kitchen and a contributor to ITV's This Morning.
He said 'loads' of things have gone wrong in live broadcasts.
'I've burnt things, [This Morning presenter] Alison Hammond has moved things without me realising… 'But probably the biggest one was on Saturday Kitchen. It goes out to like three million people, so it's always a very stressful one to do, but it's a brilliant show. View this post on Instagram
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'And I once sliced a little bit of the tip off my finger and had to continue on interviewing and chatting. Julian Clary was the celebrity guest. He was a pain in the a**e because he kept bringing it up.'
Elsewhere at Bloom, another Irishman familiar to British TV viewers was in attendance for the very first time.
Diarmuid Gavin explained: 'I've been abroad, and it's always around the time of the Chelsea Flower Show. And while I've lived in Ireland, I've never worked here until Covid. So, eventually, I've made it.'
The TV gardener told Extra.ie the festival was 'great' from his first impressions.
'People are very enthusiastic. Great crowds, great gardens and great nurseries. So all very good.'
This year's garden trend is 'going wild', Gavin said.
'Embracing the weeds, embracing the natural, getting away from the chemicals – all of that is very popular.'
The Bloom judges awarded the concept garden gold medal to The Rainbow Brick Balcony Garden, made entirely from Lego.
Limerick artist Gary Kirwan built it from 814,183 pieces over eight weeks, doing '85%' of the work himself. Despite the lack of organic matter in his incredible creation, he said organisers were 'really responsive' to the idea, with one in particular a 'big Lego fan'.
The Marie Keating Foundation returned to Bloom with their 'Early Bird Catches The Worm' garden, highlighting the importance of early cancer detection.
The charity's director of development, Lyrah O'Beirne, said the silver gilt medal-winning garden is 'asking people to be aware of what the signs and symptoms are and to act on them and get treated.
'The impact on the patient – physically, mentally and financially – is so much easier if it's treated in its early stages, and people can get back to a normal life.
'It's also much easier on their friends and family and on their work, because what people don't realise is that cancer just doesn't affect the patient, it affects everybody connected to that person.'