TELEVISION PRESENTING duo Ant and Dec have become the latest big names to receive a vaccine against coronavirus.
The Geordie twosome, who are both of Irish descent, confirmed the news on their official Twitter account with a side-by-side shot of them receiving the jab.
In the image, Anthony McPartlin,45, can be seen dressed in white T-shirt and dark jeans, wearing his mask, while a nurse injects him in the top of his left harm.
Declan Donnelly, 45, is meanwhile seen in closeup on the shot, wearing a facemask and as he prepares to receive his injection.
The picture of the pair is captioned: “We’re jabbin'” #vaccinated.”
Shared with their 6.8 million followers on Twitter, the post made no mention of whether Ant and Dec received the Pfizer jab or AstraZeneca vaccine.
It was nevertheless well received by fans.
“Yay best club to be in!!!! Just dont slap each other on the arm for a couple of days!” one tweeted.
“Keep staying safe, both of you! And thank you for being good examples throughout this entire pandemic” another wrote.
A third commented: “YES!!! COME ON VACCINATED LEGENDS!!!!”
We’re jabbin’ 💉 #vaccinated pic.twitter.com/2UnU35sZhL
— antanddec (@antanddec) April 23, 2021
They may be Britain’s most famous TV duo, but McPartlin and Donnelly’s roots firmly reside in Ireland.
McPartlin was born and raised in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, but his family originally hails from Drumkeeran in Leitrim.
Donnelly, too, may be a Geordie himself but is also the child of Northern Irish parents, who moved to Newcastle from Desertmartin in Co Derry back in the 1950s.
The presenters appeared previously appeared on the Late Late Show to further lift the lid on their distinctly Irish roots.
Donnelly recalled to host Ryan Tubridy how he would spend countless hours as a child at the Tyneside Irish Centre, which was run by his parents, where he developed a love of performing.
"My mum and dad ran it and my mum was working there behind the bar the night I was born, she had contractions while washing glasses," he said. "So, she hopped off to hospital and I was born and that’s where I grew up really, in this working men’s club. This Irish cultural centre in Newcastle.
"I was surrounded by Irish people who were living and working in Newcastle so that was my upbringing for the first ten, eleven years of my life. There was always a stage in the function room and that’s where I got my love of performing."
Despite developing a taste for the stage, Donnelly briefly considered following his older brother’s example by becoming a priest.
"My Brother had gone off at 17 and I was about ten or eleven and he’d gone off to seminary and I went to an all-boys Catholic school and one of things they ask you to do is to consider is if you have a vocation and I thought maybe I could do it too!
"But we were about that age that we saw the girls from the convent school going by and I was much more interested in the girls passing by."
.@antanddec talk about the DNA test that shows their shared history #LateLate pic.twitter.com/CfJLCzK7tV
— The Late Late Show (@RTELateLateShow) September 11, 2020
McPartlin, meanwhile, spoke about the experience of learning more about his Irish heritage.
"We did a TV show called Our DNA Journey last year and I didn’t know anything about my heritage,” he told Tubridy.
"I took a DNA test and went to and I’ve still got relatives in Drumkeeran and I walked into a pub and everyone in the pub was related to me because they’d all taken a DNA. It was a very good-looking pub!"
He continued "I met a lot of people who I’m still in touch with now and it was great because I knew nothing and suddenly, I got all this information. It was quite an emotional day."
