Stephen Farrelly is a WWE superstar better known as Sheamus to wrestling fans. He was born on January 28, 1978 in Dublin, Ireland. After playing Gaelic football and becoming personal security to U2's Bono, He began training with Larry Sharpe but after suffering a serious  neck injury, his career was put on hold for two years. Upon his return, he began wrestling for Irish Whip Wrestling where he became their first International Champion. He lost and regained the championshhip against former WWE star D'Lo Brown and had a successful title defense against Vampiro of WCW fame.

Afte brief stints in a couple of British independent promotions, Sheamus left to pursue a career in the WWE. He started as a member of WWE's security team in 2006 during Raw in Manchester, England where he was given a Pedigree by Triple H after unsuccessfully trying to eject them from ringside. After wrestling a fe tryout matches, Sheamus wlas signed to a developmental contract and was sent to Florida Championhip Wrestling for training.

In February 2008, he made debut in FCW and by September, he beat Jack Swagger for the FCW Heavyweight Championship. He lost the title two months later to Eric Escobar in a fatal four way match. From that point on, he started to appear in dark matches before televisiong tapings. He made his debut on television in June 2009 on ECW dropping his last name and calling himself "The Celtic Warrior. He started a feud with Goldust where Sheamus beat Goldust on two consecutive weeks.

The feud came to an end after Sheamus was successful in a No Disqualfication match against Goldust and this led to a brief feud with Shelton Benjamin. He made his RAW debut on October 26, 2009 in a match where he attacked Jamie Noble and caused him to retire. In follwing weeks, he would attack a timekeeper and Jerry "The King" Lawler. He made his pay per view debut at Survivor Series in an elimination match where he eliminated Finlay and John Morrison.

The night after Survivor Series, Sheamus won a "breakthough" battle royal, which had wrestlers who had never held a World Championship. By winning this battle royal, he became the number one contender for the WWE Championship, held by John Cena. He went onto defeat Cena for the WWE Championship for his first title in the WWE.