Water Safety Awareness Challenge

Hey guys, so if you follow me on Instagram you will know that I recently set up a water safety awareness challenge where each day I posted some water safety tips and advice! I had planned to run the challenge for 14 days but for reasons out of my control, I only made it as far as day number 8! 😭 As promised, here are the tips I posted so that you can read over them again and hopefully have more knowledge of water safety and it’s importance especially as we enter into the summer season!

  • Day 1 – Lifeguard whistle meanings!
  • There are 4 types of whistle noises to listen out for!
    1. One short blast – the lifeguard is calling the attention of another pool user.
    2. Two short blasts – the lifeguard is calling the attention of another lifeguard.
    3. Three short blasts – the lifeguard is taking emergency action.
    4. One long blast – the lifeguard may be about to clear the pool and is calling the attention of all the pool users.

    Day 2 – Beach flags!

    There are three types of flags to watch out for while at the beach!

      Black & white flag – area only to be used by surfers etc. but no swimming allowed.
      Red flag – it is dangerous to swim and you should not enter the water.
      Red & yellow flag – safe to swim and there is a lifeguard on duty.

    Always keep between the flags on the beach and make sure there is a lifeguard on duty before you enter the water.

    Day 3 – Don’t hold your breath under water!

    This is one of the most dangerous things a person can do under the water. As a swimming instructor I know that most kids love to hold their breath under water for as long as possible. This can cause shallow water blackout and you can lose consciousness under water. If you are not rescued immediately, your lungs will fill with water and you will drown!

    Day 4 – The 3 simple rescues!

    1. Shout – use your voice to get the attention of the person and encourage them to come back to the shore.
    1. Reach – Using something to hold and reach out to the person in need. For example, a branch from a tree or clothing.
    2. Throw – Throwing a buoyant object to the person, such as a ringbuoy or anything that floats.

    Day 5 – How to throw a ringbuoy!

    This is extremely important to know, as everyone has seen one of these at some stage, whether at the beach, pool, river, lake etc.

    1. Grab the nearest ringbuoy and either stand on the end of the rope or hold it in your hand.
      Call the attention of the person in need keep communicating with them.
      Swing back the ringbuoy and throw forward using an under arm throw. Shout at the person that you are throwing the ringbuoy to them.
      Aim to throw it past the person so that you can pull it in close to them to grab a hold of.
      Keep reassuring the person and keep contact at all times while slowly pulling them to safety.

    Day 6 – Pool depth!

    Always remember to check how deep a pool is before you enter and also never dive into shallow water!

    Day 7 – Always learn how to use your equipment before trying it out!

    This is very important to remember, always make sure you understand what everything is for and how to use it correctly before you head out to the water! Never swim after anything drifting as you could get yourself into trouble if you swim out too far!

    Day 8 – No alcohol before swimming!

    Never consume alcohol before swimming as your judgement will be impaired and you may get yourself into a lot of danger in the water! Also remember never to eat just before swimming!

    Thanks to everyone for taking part in my water safety awareness challenge and for helping to make people more aware of the water! If you have any questions or anything else you would like to know, you can contact me by email which is; Hello@PatrickMungovan.com 😎 Until next time!

    Get To Know Me Q&A

  • Hi guys, I decided to post a questions box on Instagram to let you ask me questions that you want answered! Thank you to everyone for the questions, I have narrowed it down to 20 as I’d be here all day trying to answer them all! Here we go…
  • 1. How many countries have you been to? Seven

    2. Did you go to college? I studied tourism and business in GMIT but I hated it so I didn’t finish it. I went on to join Profi Fitness School in Dublin where I completed my aqua fitness courses. Personally I think it’s a very hard decision trying to decide what to do after secondary school, I hadn’t a clue what I wanted so I ended up doing a course that I had no interest in. Take your time deciding and even take a year out of it helps you decide your college course or career for the future.

    3. Do you have any goals for the next few years? I’m not sure to be honest, things have been going great for me in 2019 so far so hopefully it’ll stay that way!

    4. Which is more important, quantity of friends or quality? Well for me this is an easy one to answer, 100% quality! It’s easy have 100 friends but the real ones are the ones who are always there for you through thick and thin. I’ve realized this a lot over the past few years and I am lucky to have a small group of great friends.

    5. Your favorite holiday? It would have to be when I visited my brother Declan in California. We flew into San Francisco and hired a car and traveled all the way down through California by the coast!

    6. Cat or dog? Dog

    7. How are you getting on working with Spin South West? I’m getting on great, I’ve always wanted to be a SPINI and I really love meeting new people and seeing new places.

    8. How many pairs of shoes do you have? Haha I knew this would be asked, to be honest I have more pairs still in boxes than what I wear! I’d say I have about 15 pairs altogether.

    9. Can you play an instrument? Yes, I played the tin whistle for about 6 years. I can also play the piano and fiddle.

    10. What’s your favorite accent to hear? I’ll have to say the Australian accent.

    11. I want to be a swimming instructor, would you recommend it? Yes I love working as a swimming instructor. I have been teaching lessons almost 8 years now and it’s very rewarding when I teach a child or adult to swim and seeing them so happy makes it all worth it!

    12. How tall are you? I am 6 foot tall.

    13. Do you prefer iPhone or Android? I prefer iPhone. I’m currently using the iPhone XS Max and I love it.

    14. What’s your date of birth? 11 September 1995.

    15. Tips for starting a blog? Just go for it! Write what you want to and the most important thing is that you enjoy it. I based my blog on WordPress which I find very easy to use, feel free to email me if you need any help with it!

    16. Your favorite food? Chicken.

    17. What is your favorite place in Europe? My favorite is Poland. I was there for a week in 2016 and it was such a lovely country and so much to do. We visited the salt mines and the concentration camp which were both very interesting to see.

    18. Which clothing brand do you prefer? When I’m not in swimming togs or wearing my Spin South West uniform, I’m more than like wearing a SuperDry or Diesel hoodie!

    19. What did you want to be when you were a child? I wanted to be a customs officer. I think it’s such a cool job and very interesting. There’s always different things to do every day and I would love that challenge.

    20. What camera do you use? I have the Canon EOS 750D. I got it in Harvey Norman and it’s one of my favorite gadgets that I always use.

    Thanks for reading! 🙂

    My Blog Turns 2!

    Hey guys, so as you may know it has been 2 years since I started my blog! I had wanted to start my own blog for a long time but I was nervous what reaction I would get when I announced it to people. In April 2017, I decided to go for it and I haven’t looked back! My blog has been very successful for me so far and I am very thankful for all of you who take the time to read my blog.

    In 2017, I was completely new to blogging and I was unsure as to what I would post about. I enjoy cooking and also traveling so I decided to make it a lifestyle blog which features a bit of everything!

    Shortly after starting my blogging journey, I was shocked to find out that I was nominated for a blog award in the category of best newcomer 2018. To be honest I never expected to win the award as I had only been at it about 3 months at the time but I still made it to the second last stage of the awards! This was a huge achievement for me to be recognized for an award at such an early stage.

    In 2018 I was nominated for the same awards and this time I managed to take home an award for the best male influencer. I was overwhelmed and honored to have been crowned the winner of this prize at an awards ceremony which took place in Dublin. This opened many opportunities to me and it made me more determined to see what I could continue to achieve if I put the work into it.

    So here we are in 2019 and what a year it has been for me so far! I have been signed to my first ever talent management company and it feels so weird to tell people that I have a manager 😂 In January I found out that I had been nominated for best Snapchatter and next upcoming social media star in the International Runway Achievers & Recognition Awards. A few of my fellow blogger friends had also been nominated for the same awards so I was really looking forward to attending the ceremony to get to meet them. The ceremony took place in the Hilton Dublin Airport hotel and I took five of my friends with me on the night. The ceremony had just begun when I heard my name being called out for Best Snapchatter, within five minutes my name was announced again and I also won the next upcoming social media star I couldn’t believe it! It’s safe to say we celebrated well in Copper Face Jacks until the early hours of Sunday morning 😂

    Two days later, I had another awards ceremony which took place in the Galway bay hotel. I took home a third award and this time it was the top ten outstanding young persons awards which I was awarded one in the category for personal improvement and accomplishment. It was a fantastic night getting to meet the other nine outstanding young people and to hear their stories of the fantastic work they have done for people. Overall it was a very busy weekend and I’m delighted that I was able to bring all three awards back home to west Clare!

    This year, I’ve also got a new job with Spin South West! Ever since I was young, I’ve wanted to be a SPINI. I always thought it would be so cool to go around in the branded cars and it definitely is! I’m a very outgoing person so I love talking to new people and it’s great getting to meet lots of new people and see so many new places! All of the other SPINI’s are very nice and we are all of similar ages so it’s great to make new friends also. So far 2019 has been a great year for me and I’m so excited to see what’s to come for the rest of it ❤️

    Coping With Grief

    Hey guys, happy new year to everyone out there! Sorry I haven’t been writing much here recently, I really need to post more frequently.

    I spoke about coping with grief on my Instagram story a few months ago and it was the most viewed story I’ve ever had! I received hundreds and hundreds of messages from people telling me their stories and the different ways they learnt to deal with grief after a loved one passed away.

    I’ll list a few of them below, just to help anyone out there that may be struggling and always remember that time is a healer. It might not seem like it at the moment but over time it does make coping with grief a little easier. Having to deal with grief is one of the most difficult things we will go through in our lives, you will feel empty and there are a few things to help make it a little easier.

    1. Talk to others – it is very important to talk to your family or friends and explain to them how you are feeling. Talk to them about your loss and sadness and although you won’t expect them to have answers, it will help to have someone to listen to. There are lots of support groups to contact if you feel like talking to s stranger about what’s going through your mind. ALWAYS talk to someone!

    2. Keep a routine – make sure you look after yourself. It’s good to have a daily routine and it will avoid extra stress if you stick to this, just simple things like getting up in the morning and keep yourself busy. The busier you are, the less time you have to think about everything and avoid making major changes if possible.

    3. Take some time to yourself – it’s important to remember that family members or friends may also be grieving at the sad loss and sometimes tempers can rise between each other and the stress levels are high, that’s why you should take some time out and just even go for a walk. Everyone needs their own space to think and simple things like walking, go for a drive, go to the cinema, can all help you coping with grief.

    4. Cry – sometimes all you feel like you can do is cry and that’s normal. There has been lots of talk about this recently, especially when it comes to men! Always remember that it is not a weakness to cry and I find it hard to understand how people would even think that! It’s just like a valve, helping you release the thoughts in your head. It can feel good to let it all out and it’s always good to get it off your chest instead of holding it in which may build up more stress than you need at this time.

    Thank you all for reading this post, if you ever want to speak to someone, you can contact me on Instagram @PatrickMungovan or send me an email at Hello@PatrickMungovan.com ❤️

    Gelli Baff

    Hi guys, so after winning best male influencer last week in the blog awards, I’m back again to show you this cool new product I tested!

    This product is called gelli play/baff. It simply does what it says on the box, it turns water into jelly! I could not wait to take this out of the box after getting it.

    In the pack, it includes a 40g bag of gelli powder which you simply add to a bowl of water or bath! The more water you add, the more slimy it will feel. Mix it with your hand for a few seconds and it magically turns into jelly.

    This product is suitable for kids from the age of 3 and up. It is also non irritant and does not leave stains after use. I would advise that a parent/guardian supervises while a child plays with this as the color looks very appealing and I can imagine a child would love to taste it. It’s one of the coolest products I’ve tried and I think it would be the ideal stocking filler for Christmas.

    Once you have enough of playing with it, pour in the gelli dissolver and within a few seconds it will turn back into water again!

    You can get this product in Smyths toy stores and also available on various different online shops too. It comes in various different colors and i would highly recommend it! I know I’m 23 years of age, but who doesn’t enjoy a look around in the toy shops for something cool? I will be showing you my top 5 toys for Christmas this year, so if you would like to see a review of anything in particular, please comment or email me – Hello@PatrickMungovan.com. Thanks for reading.

    PropShopper Costume Shop

    My favourite time of the year is Halloween. I love the dark evenings in the winter so when I get to dress up for Halloween, it’s always so much fun!

    PropShopper is Ireland’s newest costume store, selling a wide range of men’s, women’s, and kids costumes along with a great selection of makeup kits and even sugar glass!

    When I got the chance to collaborate with PropShopper, I couldn’t give it a miss! I love nothing more than getting all dressed up and scary looking to frighten my parents haha!

    I tried out the bullet wound kit. I found it very easy to apply and the instructions were very clear on the packaging too. I really liked the bullet wound as it is allergy and latex free, which makes it the ideal kit to apply as there’s no worry about any skin allergies from applying it!

    That’s the kit in the above photo! I have tried kits similar to this before but I could never get them to stay on long enough, they would usually start to peel and fall off. This is definitely the best one I’ve tried over all the years, you apply it using water (much like the fake tattoos I used as a child).

    You simply open the bullet wound, cut around it to make the ideal shape that you want, stick it to your hand and rub a sponge on the back of it to get it to transfer onto your arm/face etc.

    I couldn’t wait for it to transfer to see what it looked like! My first impression was that it was well stuck on and there was no way it would fall off. Having said that, it is still simple to remove and painless.

    I added some fake blood just to make it look a bit more realistic with the blood dripping off it! I was really happy with the way it came out!

    If you want to check out the bullet wound you can click here – Bullet Wound.

    • PropShopper also added some cool new bits to their website today, including:
    • A wizard kit

      2 types of fake blood
      Long wavy siren wig
      Face paint
      Special effect throat wound

    All of the above items are available here – PropShopper.

    I also have a discount code which is PATRICKMUNGOVAN. If you enter that code at the checkout, you’ll get 10% off your order!

    Thanks for reading, you can contact me if you have any questions I’ll be happy to help!

    This is a sponsored blog post by PropShopper.ie and all social media posts relating to this are also sponsored!

    My Twin And I

    I have recently been looking through old pictures so I decided to put this blog post together! As most of you know, I had a twin brother Stephen who tragically passed away in October 2015, this is a little bit about myself and my twin brother Stephen and the lovely memories I have of him!

    We were born on September 11th 1995, in Galway hospital, and raised near a small village called Quilty, in county Clare. I live in the countryside so we were well used of being out in the fields playing as kids! Stephen and I attended Annagh national school for 8 years where we met some of our best friends, some of which are still my best friends to this day! To be honest, we were never big fans of school, but always looked forward to meeting our friends everyday to have the craic and play football with.

    This photo was taken the day of our fifth birthday, the same week we started in primary school. I still remember that day, I’ll never forget how uncomfortable the tie was! We went to secondary school in Spanish Point which we were also never big fans of! We loved going for the fun and laughs but not so much for the rest of it.

    I have some great memories with Stephen, including hundreds of pictures of us doing different things and going different places. I think that it is so important to take photos, as you never know when it could be the last one you take of someone.

    This was us as babies, look how cute we were! By the way, the flower is in the background, not stuck in my ear. Some of these pictures aren’t the best quality as it was before the days of iPhones and proper cameras.

    I have two sisters, Majella & Jennifer. I have a brother Declan, I also had another brother Michael but he sadly passed away in the year 2000. My brother Declan and sisters mean the world to me, the youngest of my siblings was 13 when we were born, I’m sure they were fed up of babysitting us at times haha. Family and friends are the most important thing you can have in life, without them you have nothing in my own opinion.

    This is a picture of myself, Stephen, Jennifer, and Majella at our first cousins wedding a few years ago.

    The best memories I have of Stephen are when we went on our holidays. My parents always brought us to Lanzarote as kids and we loved it, we always got to meet other kids our own age and we enjoyed splashing around in the pool.

    We got on great together, as with all siblings we had our arguments but we always just forgot about it five minutes later and moved on. Stephen was a trainee mechanic with Charlie Mc Enery who owns and runs a garage in Ennis, Clare. Stephen had always wanted to become a mechanic and always had a huge interest in cars. He used to change his car every few weeks, always trading them for a different type every time. Stephen absolutely adored his work with Charlie and all of the other lads in the garage. He got on great with them all and they treated him with great respect from the first day of his job.

    This was often the inside of our house when he would come home from work with a new set of wheels for a car. Stephen was always messing around with cars and always adding extras to his own cars, tinted windows, spoilers, etc.

    I’m so grateful for all the memories that we have together, I’ll never forget him and I always look at the pictures of the good times. We celebrated our birthday together every year, which was so special.

    This picture was our 16th birthday.

    For our 19th birthday, we requested a minion cake which we got, it tasted very nice and we got a great laugh out of it when we walked in the door.

    One of the best holidays we had was going to California to visit our brother Declan who was living there at the time. We were 17 at the time and we went for 10 days accompanied by our sister Jennifer. It was the trip of a lifetime. We flew into San Francisco international airport, then we met up with Declan who hired a car and then drove us all the way down the coast as far as San Diego. We stopped in many places along the way, including Hollywood which was really cool. We went to visit Alcatraz prison which was nice to see but also a bit eery considering the circumstances. It was definitely one of my favourite trips and I will always cherish the memories of it. I have posted a few pictures from California below!

    We also went to see a baseball game along with visiting the theme parks which were all great fun, apart from the roller coasters which we were terrified of!

    Another great memory I have is of going to our debs. I brought my friend Aoife and Stephen brought Caoimhe. We had such a great day and night celebrating with our friends.

    I have so many pictures to post on here but I could be here for a week writing this and still have so much to say. I will never forget my brother Stephen and all of the great times we had together. Life is hard without him, it still doesn’t seem real at times! I have the best family anyone could ever ask for and also the best friends which all keep me going! Life is tough, but I know that I have great people around me which make each day a little easier and my family are very close to each other which is great as we all stick together when times are tough!

    Stephen will always be in our hearts and not a day goes by that I don’t think about him.

    Myself and Stephen shared most of the same friends together so I will share a few photos of us with our friends to finish off this post. Thank you all for taking the time to read this ❤️

    Our fishing trip 

    Today myself and my father went on our first fishing trip. We went for the two hour fishing trip which also brought us on a tour of our local area which would never have been visible from the land. We set off on our trip from the pier in Doonbeg, Co. Clare. Our boat driver was Cathal and he was very welcoming to us when we arrived. Cathal is the owner of Doonbeg Adventures who run boat trips to the Aran islands, fishing trips, and also bicycle hire. The boat was very comfortable with plenty of space for everyone.

    We had just left the pier with five minutes and we had already started to see plenty of activity out at sea. There were many different species of birds to be seen, and we had a group of dolphins swim right beside the boat showing off some of their moves!


    I haven’t seen dolphins since I was a young child, so I loved getting to see them so close to us. There were about six or seven dolphins all around the boat, it was great!

    We carried on our journey and we shortly arrived at a place called ‘The Horseshoe’. The name is self explanatory as it’s the best way to describe this place. It was a small cove in the shape of a horseshoe which we were able to go in around and have a look at.


    The whole place was full of jellyfish which was also very exciting to see. The next part was to move back out to the sea for the fishing 🎣 We left the horseshoe and made our way back out into the middle of the ocean. The views were absolutely beautiful from where we were. The camera doesn’t do justice to this beautiful place.


    When the boat was in the right location, the fishing started 😎  This was my favourite part as I have never been fishing from a boat before. I was a bit nervous at the start but within two minutes of the line entering the water, I had a fish!


    This was the first fish I caught and it was a nice size. It is a pollock which I’m sure will be delicious for dinner tomorrow. Within minutes we had multiple fish caught, there were lots of fish in the area at the time. We caught a mixture of pollock and mackerel. Our driver Cathal was very helpful and showed us how to let out the line and explained everything to us.


    This is a photo of myself, just after catching three mackerel at the same time! Cathal was a great help with removing the fish from the hooks, as it can be quite painful to get stuck with one of them while the fish is jumping around.


    Myself and my father were delighted with our evening out fishing, I would recommend this trip 100% to anyone who enjoys fishing. It was brilliant, I cannot wait to go fishing again with Doonbeg Adventures another evening soon! It was such an enjoyable trip and it’s great to see the beauty of our coast here in county Clare. Many of you have been asking me about this company, so here is a link to their Facebook page to keep up to date with upcoming trips or to make a booking: Doonbeg Adventures Facebook. This is definitely a trip that the whole family can enjoy together. Thank you to Cathal and his family for looking after us so well on board your boat. Can’t wait to visit again soon! 🐟🎣

    Start of my fitness journey

    It’s that time of year again for me to start exercising and cutting out rubbish food. For those of you who know me, I usually go on about 4 diets a year with each one only lasting for a couple of days normally. The reason these diets don’t work for me are because once I start the diet, I stop eating everything that I would normally eat, and concentrate mostly on eggs, beans, fruit, and vegetables. I now realise that this is the wrong thing to do, and the trick is to cut out these bad foods one at a time instead of going crazy and giving them all up together.

    Now I will admit, I’m not a big fan of exercise. To be very honest, I hate it! Even the thought of going exercising is enough for me to stay sitting on the couch eating a share bag of doritos 😂

    The part that I find most important for anything is to get all the correct gear before you start! I started off by getting myself a triathlon watch(I know, it’s probably a waste). I bought the Garmin 920XT after getting recommendations from a couple of people I know in my local triathlon club. The main reason I got this watch is because it can track your swimming, and as I am a swimming instructor, I can spend a lot of time in the water! I like this watch because it connects to your phone via Bluetooth so you can keep records of how you are getting on, and it also shows you notifications such as new text messages, new snapchats, straight to your watch ⌚️


    The only thing about this watch is that is it quite expensive! So far I’m loving this watch, and I am constantly checking it to see how many steps I have walked so far each day 😂

    The next thing I had to get for my fitness journey was a nice pair of shoes. I have my wardrobe full of shoes at this stage, many of which are still in boxes! 😅 I decided to get these Nike runners, mostly because I liked the colour of them as they are very bright so they will stand out. The only thing I will say about getting new shoes is that you ‘break them in’ before setting off walking or running. I didn’t realise I had to do this the first time I used them and I came home with my two heels all cut and blistered. This caused me a lot of discomfort while walking around the house afterwards.


    So anyways, back to the fitness part again, I downloaded an application to my phone called ‘MapMyRun’ which you can use if you do not have a watch to do it for you. This app uses your GPS location to find out where you start your walk from and shows you the route that you walked on a map, as shown below:

    Day 1For my first walk, I went with a few friends to make it easier and the time goes a lot faster when you have someone to talk to, rather than walking alone. We set off on our hike with all the gear ready to go. We decided to take t handy for the first day, as I didn’t want to be getting any cramps or anything that would turn me off the idea of exercising again 😅 The walk took 55:21 minutes and we walked a distance of 5.43 kilometres. I know this was rather slow, but I was delighted for my first time walking this distance ever 😇


    When I came home, i was staving. Instead of eating a bag of crisps, I decided I would cook scrambled eggs and baked beans as they are a lot healthier than anything else I would usually eat! I am going to continue this walk and try to walk a bit faster and a bit longer each day. If you would like to see more updates of my journey, you can follow me on Snapchat @patrickmungovan and we will work through this together 😊 You can let me know if you have any tips or suggestions 👍🏽

    Day 2: The second day of my fitness journey went great. I had pasta for my dinner, no chocolate and no crisps. This was a huge success for me as I eat all these rubbish foods on a daily basis. I went for my walk again with friends. We did the same route as the previous day but just made it a small bit longer today. Today we walked 5.66 kilometres in 1:00:37 hours long. My feet were a bit sore today from the blisters I had on the backs of my heels, but nothing that a few plasters wouldn’t sort!

    New snapchat update 

    Hi guys. So as ye know there’s a new snapchat update available and I just wanted to help explain what the new update is about. In my opninon, this new update can easily be used as a tracker or even to spy on a friend at any given time!

    In this new update, you can see exactly where your friends are and how long ago they were there. I can see this new update causing lots of problems for people, whether you are not supposed to be in a place where you are, or you live alone and you are out of the house etc.

    I posted a couple of snapchat videos warning my followers of the dangers, I had numerous replies asking me what it was about and they didn’t know how to use it.

    So firstly, when you are on your camera screen, such as the photo below:


    The next thing to do is to put 2 fingers on the screen and move them together as if you were zooming out of a photo. It will then bring you to a screen with a map on it and you can see where your friends are, as shown below:


    You can click each bitmoji to see which friend is at a location and if you keep zooming in to them, you can even see what building they are in at that time. I zoomed into myself on the map and you can clearly see which house I am at right now:


    I can see a lot of major problems with this new update and my advice to anyone using snapchat would be to disable this feature as soon as you can. Luckily enough, this can be disabled very easily. To disable this feature simply follow my instructions below:

    1. Zoom in and click your bitmoji


    2. Click ‘Tap for settings’ at the bottom of the screen



    3. Turn on ‘Ghost Mode’


    4. Once you have this done, a small sign with a ghost will appear over your bitmoji, only you can see your location once this has been done


    Thanks for reading guys and if you would like to follow me on snapchat, here’s my snapcode: