Yesterday was a day of firsts for me; TV shows, meeting the Mayor, being told to ‘go on go on’ by a genuine Irish person…

All of these momentous events were down to the launch of the Make Manchester Proud Campaign which is part of the Dublin-based Niall Mellon Township Trust.

The charity is searching for 70 Mancunians to travel with 1,000 Irish volunteers to South Africa to build houses in Townships and we helped them to launch this at a very busy event yesterday at the Midland Hotel.

The TV appearance was on the Channel M Breakfast show, thankfully at that hour of the day it wasn’t me but Charlie O’Kelly of the charity who chatted with the presenters on the red sofa.

Meeting the Mayor came later as she came along to the event, green St Patrick’s Day hair and all,  to show her support for the charity. We were also joined by City and Ireland keeper Shay Given who was a good sport and merrily posed with a hard hat and shovel.

Being St Patrick’s Day the ‘go on go on’ was an offer of alcohol but given that I was signing in the ‘dignitaries of the city’ at the time I politely refused.

The launch event was such a success that I have really high hopes of the people of Manchester to make this charity a success and if the support we’ve had so far is anything to go by I’m sure I won’t be disappointed.