Cavan Santa takes grotto online

A Cavan-based professional Santa Claus has taken his annual festive grotto experience online.

Despite being curtailed by Covid restrictions, Niall Sheridan from Virginia is as determined as ever to spread Christmas cheer this year to as many little boys and girls across the country as possible.

This time of year would generally have seen Niall, who is one of the country's premiere professional Santas, run off his feet, travelling to merry settings across the region, fulfilling bookings for large companies such as Google and others.

“A bit of everything, all over the place. That would be normal. But this year, nothing is normal,” states Niall, who is a volunteer with St John's Ambulance, and hopes to use the proceeds earned from the venture to train in other volunteer responders.

To do so, Niall has captured the domain name - www.zoomsantaclaus.ie - and has employed the services of a green screen, which he has perched behind his own grotto scene in the office of his south Cavan home.

For €20, Niall is offering 10 minutes with Old Saint Nic.

“What I do the rest of the year is I work with St John's Ambulance. I'm an emergency medical technician. But as I get older, as inevitably has happened, I'm doing less operations and I've decided to move more into teaching and instructing,” says Niall, who is a retired clergyman, a qualified nurse, coroner, and pre-hospital emergency medical technician.

“Last year Santa brought me two instructor's courses. Next year he was to bring me another, and again the year after.”

But such is Niall's dedication to St John's, and in seeing the next generation of first responders follow through, that the organisation have encouraged him to jump directly to the tutoring course.

“I'm 65 now and feeling every inch of it, but hopefully as a tutor this will allow me to continue volunteering and giving of myself to St John's.”

He says of the set-up employed to deliver the Santa experience: “It's a lot less glamorous and a bit more techy, but it's about the feeling you put into it. I've two laptops and green screen, which means I can put up whatever I like, messages or whatever in the background.”

Niall's online Santa experience is already in high demand.

He has received bookings, including from a company in Dublin for a day for its staff, and another which has booked his services for several hours.

As an aside, Niall intends on doing a day of Santa stand-in for St John's Ambulance staff in Swords and Cavan, for their children and grandchildren, and another local group, the Jumping Jelly Beans from Virginia.

“I do what I can and at the same time try and make as much time as I can for the few that I always do something with.”

In readying himself for the role, Niall grows his hair and bear, without trim, until his son-in-law cuts it back in what has become an annual tradition after Christmas dinner each year.

“I get my annual cut after Christmas dinner, and that is it until the following Christmas. So I look like the man, and as soon as I put the coat on, I am the man,” regards Niall.

“Obviously you get recognised wherever you go. You could be walking about the corner of a shop in April when all of sudden you meet a child and immediately, you see their eyes, they go like saucers. You'd see them tugging on their mummy's hand, and I'd often just stand there for a minute, before quickly giving them a wave before bringing my finger up to my lips as if to say 'our little secret',” he chuckles.