Patrick Kielty is spending increasingly more time in Ireland, with friends saying he now wants to make the country his permanent base.Sources close to the Co. Down comedian say he has become ‘wedded’ to life in Ireland and sees it as his long-term home.‘Patrick has been spending more and more time here of late,’ an RTÉ insider told the Irish Mail on Sunday. ‘I think Ireland is definitely his main home now, and that’s the way he wants it to be going forward.’Kielty will begin preparations next month for the new Late Late season, but insiders say his visits have been far more frequent than his television schedule alone would require. Patrick Kielty is spending increasingly more time in Ireland, with friends saying he now wants to make the country his permanent base‘He’s been up North but he’s also been spending time south a good bit.‘Obviously he’s back on the Late Late and that gets under way in August with pre-season planning, but from what I’m hearing he’s intending to spend more time in Ireland in future.’A native of Co. Down, Kielty is understood to have been staying at his late mother Mary’s house in Dundrum, Co Down, which has not been sold. Mary Kielty, who was in her eighties, died peacefully at her home in Dundrum in March, having raised three sons there after her husband Jack was shot dead by the UFF in 1988. The family home remains in the Kielty family’s hands.Friends say Kielty’s more frequent presence on Irish soil could also be attributed to the breakdown of his marriage to UTV This Morning presenter Cat Deeley, who appears to have moved on from her marriage.The 49-year-old telly star was photographed alongside film executive Charlie Coleman, a senior figure at Amazon MGM Studios, last weekend at the American Express presents BST Hyde Park festival in London, with the pair watching Lewis Capaldi perform.Onlookers noted the two were tactile throughout the evening, with Coleman touching Deeley’s bare back affectionately as they shared jokes, whispered to each other and danced to the music. She wore a black strappy jumpsuit, oversized sunglasses and a Chanel bag.Kielty and Deeley married in 2012 and separated in 2025 after thirteen years together and two children. Cat Deeley with her This Morning co-host Ben Shephard On the professional front, sources indicate Kielty is expanding his Irish production footprint beyond the Late Late, taking on more work here through his production company, including external RTÉ projects such as Up for the Match.The MoS revealed earlier this month that Kielty had signed a new three-year deal to host The Late Late Show, returning this September for the programme’s 66th season and hosting up to 30 episodes per year.RTÉ confirmed the agreement, which keeps him in the chair until at least 2028, having first taken over the show from Ryan Tubridy back in September 2023.In a statement marking the renewal, Kielty said hosting the show remained one of the best jobs in television and that the past three years had been a privilege, adding that he was looking forward to being back with viewers on Friday nights from September.RTÉ said the outgoing season had averaged 385,000 viewers per episode with a 38.2 per cent share, along with more than 1.46 million streams on the RTÉ Player — figures the broadcaster pointed to as evidence of his enduring pull with audiences.His return to the Late Late hot seat came after protracted negotiations, with the MoS understanding that Kielty secured a pay rise which could be as much as €30,000.Kielty recently attended the Tailteann Cup final match between Down (country for whom he once played) and Wicklow at Croke Park in Dublin on July 11 in the company of two young boys.One onlooker said: ‘He was in great form and was nice to all the staff at Croke Park, particularly the young people, it was very nice to see,’