It’s one final rodeo for the podcaster Amber Wilson, who falls off the horse during country week on Dancing with the Stars (RTÉ One, Sunday, 6.30pm) and becomes the latest celeb to exit the 2026 competition.
Wilson’s departure is no surprise: she has rarely seemed at ease on the dance floor, and her American smooth to Chappell Roan’s The Giver is about as slick as a cuddle with a cactus. If anything, the real story of this giddily enjoyable episode is how Ireland’s passion for country music once again sets RTÉ’s Dancing with the Stars apart from other versions.
Where else would the lilting Longford legend Declan Nerney put in a cameo during the training sections? And what show but Dancing with the Stars Ireland would give viewers a former prison guard and Traitors veteran posing as a gameshow host to the strains of Nerney’s Stop the World and Let Me Off, which is how Paudie Moloney punches in this week?
It’s either great fun or completely baffling, depending on where you stand on country’n’Irish. You can only wonder what Oti Mabuse, the new head judge, will have made of all the rhinestones and tassels. And that’s just the rower Philip Doyle doing an American smooth to Glen Campbell.
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But if RTÉ is keeping it country, the contestants are falling into two camps. There are those who are growing into the competition after a stuttering start. These include Moloney, whose quickstep with Laura Nolan scores a solid 23.
Others are floundering when they should be flying, among them the Eurovision winner Niamh Kavanagh, who is told by the usually positive Arthur Gourounlian that she needs to try hard with a vengeance.
“This cha-cha didn’t impress me much,” he says after Kavanagh and Stephen Vincent groove to Shania Twain. “It’s getting very samey.” A score of 16 leaves her bang at the bottom.
At the opposite end of the leader board, potential champions are coming into focus. The winners on Sunday night are the former Apprentice contestant Jordan Dargan and his pro partner, Rebecca Scott, who dazzle with a paso doble to Dead End Road by Jelly Roll and score a knockout 34.
Dressed head to toe in black, Dargan talks about channelling the spirit of Zorro and Batman into the routine. But it’s a case of holy swear word during the banter-with-the-hosts section.
“All of us are working our arse off,” he says on live TV. “Sorry about the arse.”
It’s a rare bum note from Dargan on his best evening yet. As the weaker contestants are picked off one by one, the Dubliner could yet be the darling of Dancing with the Stars and the winner of the coveted glitterball gong.
