Meath family do battle on Ireland's Fittest Family

Ireland’s Fittest Family returns to our screens on Sunday evening with the Finnegan family from Meath ready to battle it out against three other families in the first episode.

Paul Finnegan runs Finnegan’s Farm and along with Eoin, Cathal and Orla, make up the Finnegan team who will be mentored by new judge and legendary Meath jockey Nina Carberry.

Nina joins coaches Davy Fitzgerald, Anna Geary and Donncha O’Callaghan on this year’s series as they each push their families to their limits in the hope of winning the coveted title and €15,000 prize.

The Finnegans, who take on families from Wicklow, Laois and Wexford, are massive fans of the show and have contemplated this challenge for years.

Paul runs well known potato farm Finnegan's Farm. He has 10,000 subscribers to his youtube channel, and says they would like to ‘reinvent the potato’. Eoin, Cathal and Órla all play football for Seneschalstown.

Football and farming are a passion for the Finnegan's. Eoin and Órla are following a career in teaching while Cathal has chosen to follow in the farming footsteps of the five generations of Finnegan's that went before him.

In this year’s Ireland’s Fittest Family, the families must each take on a brand-new event, ‘High and Dry’. One member of each family must take to the skies and hang on to two gymnastic rings, suspended from a crane high above the icy waters of The Lake, while the rest of the family run shuttles across slippery pontoons floating on the water. The most runs completed wins, and the clock stops when the family member on the rings loses their grip and plunges into the Lake.

The four families then have their stamina tested in another new event, ‘Raft Race’. The teams must pull themselves across the lake using a rope and a raft – but only two can be on the raft at once. It’s a test of grit and stamina and is bound to become a firm Fittest family favourite.

With the scores of the first two events are combined, the winning family goes through to the next round, and the family at the bottom are sent home. Then the other two face Ireland’s Fittest Family’s first ever Water Eliminator.

This is the first time Ireland’s Fittest Family have filmed the heats in a brand new location – the beautiful Rathbeggan Lakes in County Meath – with the rest of the series returning to Hell & Back in Kilruddery, Co Wicklow.

Heats one to four takes place in ‘The Lakes where four families in each episode battle it out for two places in the quarter-finals. Then it’s on to ‘The Forest’ for two episodes, when the remaining eight try to fight their way to the next round. Next up, the semi-final takes place in ‘The Swamp’ where the six families remaining desperately try to nab one of four places in the Grand Final, on ‘The Mountain’.

Ireland's Fittest Family airs on RTE1 at 6.30pm on Sunday.