By Abbie Dully
Kathlin Maughan is a 24-year-old Cavan-based traveller who, alongside her father Terry Maughan, is using her TikTok page to spread laughter and positivity through the community she has built within her growing following, currently sitting at 39.8k followers.
Kathlin began using TikTok as most young girls do, posting videos when she was dressed up or following dancing trends. As she continued posting for a few years, her follower count began growing, and her content evolved to a mixture of comedy videos, reviews, hauls and singing videos. In December 2025, she posted a video with her father, Terry, using different filters on TikTok. The two began posting videos together regularly.
These videos quickly received major traction, with one video from January 2026 currently sitting at 878.2k views. Their followers find great joy in watching the two bounce off each other and how natural and funny their content is. “There’s no filter in our house. We just go with the flow, and that’s it”
Kathlin spoke to us about how she was highly influenced by fellow TikToker Shane McCarthy and how his content reminded her to just be herself. “He is someone that actually inspired us to do videos and be yourself, even though you’re a Traveller. You can do whatever, like, you know, enjoy your life”. Kathlin and Terry were overjoyed when they got the opportunity to appear as guests on Shane’s podcast, “I Said What I Said with Shane McCarthy’ where they spoke on the growth of their account as well as how they spread a positive message and the importance of mental health advocation. “
In addition to their joint account on the platform, they have their own accounts they post on. They have offered these accounts as a place for viewers to reach out if they are ever in need of someone to talk to, but that isn’t just one-sided. Kathlin told us about a time she received a hate comment on one of her posts, and by the time she saw it, several of her followers had already responded, sticking up for her. Kathlin and Terry have built a beautiful community through their posts.
Kathlin is currently working in St Vincent de Paul’s charity shop in Cavan. She manages her time between her work there and filming content, as well as remembering to spend time with family and friends. Kathlin decided to study Fashion Design and uses this in both work and her content. Kathlin posts videos of clothes she purchases, talking about how she plans to style them, and she also creates the window displays at work.
Kathlin spoke to us about the rise in Travellers posting to TikTok, whether that be cleaning videos, cooking videos, beauty videos or just young Travellers staying up to date on current trends. “I think that’s lovely that Travellers want to do TikTok – Because a lot of people does be ashamed, and they’re like, that person’s going to talk about me. But you shouldn’t. Don’t care for that person. Care for yourself and what you want to become.”
Kathlin looks forward to watching her accounts grow and seeing where the future leads her and her father. They hope to collaborate with other influencers in the future but for now are happy to just see what comes for them as they continue posting. “Life is too short to care what anybody thinks about you or yourself. Just keep being yourself and do whatever kind of videos you’d like to do and see if anybody likes them. And if they don’t, as long as you like them, who cares? As long as you’re happy, that should be the main thing.”
