Sporty Spice Mel C visits Limerick

MELANIE Chisholm will appear on television next week looking at her family history in Limerick.

One-fifth of the world famous girl group The Spice Girls, Mel, known as 'Sporty Spice' descended on the Treaty City to film an episode of hit BBC tv series 'Who do you think you are?'.

It airs next Thursday, August 29, at 9pm on BBC One.

Ahead of the screening, it is revealed she "shed tears" as she discovered her family's connection to Shannonside.

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She discovered her connection to tenant farmers in Limerick, who endured harrowing hardships in the nation’s history like hundreds of thousands of others.

In the episode, she learned her great-great-great-grandparents, Patrick Flaherty and Catherine Burns, were tenant farmers in County Limerick when the Great Hunger struck in 1845.

When the couple’s landlord put the farm up for sale, they moved to Limerick City working as “landless labourers”, but as the potato crops continued to fail, the couple emigrated to Liverpool.

As her ancestors tried to start a new life abroad as did so many others, records showed the couple lost their eight-month-old son, Edmund, while finding their way in Liverpool.

Mel C, reflecting on the pain her ancestors faced said it made “so much sense to realise why my grandmother and great-grandmother were so stoic and strong”.

She added: "My three-times great-grandparents Catherine and Patrick had the worst hardships that you could imagine.”

The Spice Girl star noted learning about her family’s history made it clear to her why her family is now “really tough”, she said,

"It just totally makes sense that the family have gone on to be really tough. I know without my family fighting for their survival through the generations, I wouldn’t be here at all," she added.

'Who do you think you are?' is now in its 21st series.