Toy Show star Adam King opens up about lighting up Ireland with virtual hugs

A virtual hug from six-year-old Toy Show favourite Adam King will light up locations across the country tonight.

The adorable Cork kid, who first shared a virtual hug with Ryan Tubridy on the Late Late Toy Show,will see his ‘Hug 4 U’ sign up in lights at locations in Dublin, Cork and Waterford city centres.

The gesture celebrates National Hugging Day, and encouraged people to share virtual hugs with loved ones to beat the lockdown blues.

In a post on social media, Adam, who suffers from brittle bones, said: "Because we can't hug each other, I am sending a virtual hug to all of you. So keep an eye out, as you might catch one!"

The Samuel Beckett Bridge, Cork's City Hall and County Hall, will be among the locations lit up by Adam's Virtual hug.

Adam King from Cork (Late Late Toy Show)

Adam's father David King told 2FM Breakfast with Doireann and Eoghan that Adam was thrilled to celebrate National Hugging Day.

He said: “Adam has been fantastic in giving people a lift with his virtual hug and we reached out to some of the city and county councils around the country and they have agreed in giving everyone a virtual hug on National Hugging Day.

“Buildings and national monuments are going to be lit up with pink, the colour of Adam's virtual hug to give everyone who sees it, whether they are walking past it or see it on TV, a nice virtual hug."

Little Adam isn’t the only person sending virtual hugs this year.

Two Limerick sisters have developed their own version of a virtual hug, through an app called Huggnote that allows users to send a ‘gift wrapped’ song with a personal message to loved ones.

Huggnote has certainly struck a chord, growing 2000% in 2020 with hundreds of thousands of users in 205 countries across the globe.

Huggnote co-founder Jacqui Meskell said she came up with the idea when a friend of hers was going through a tough time and she couldn’t be near her to give her a hug.

She said: “Then a song on the radio brought back such happy memories of our time together in college and I realised that if I could ‘digitally gift wrap’ the song somehow and send it to her, it would say everything words couldn’t."

Also celebrating National Hugging Day is former Irish Rugby player Shane Jennings, who called on the public to support the Ronald McDonald House initiative by purchasing a Barróg bunny (€10), the Irish for a hug, for someone you miss and help to support families whose children are seriously ill in hospital.