Liam with mum Peggy outside the hospital

His brother and bandmate Noel said: "[Gene] looks very tired but he doesn't look like anyone yet, but Nicky looks great."

Noel, who visited his new nephew with his girlfriend Sara MacDonald, said Appleton did not look like she had just given birth.

"She looks relaxed like she's just been shopping. She said having the baby was easy and it was easier than having a tattoo.

'Doing fine'

"I don't really want to know what sort of tattoo parlours she's been to."

A spokesman for the Appletons said: "Both mother and son are doing very well and the new parents are thrilled at his safe arrival."

Liam, 28, toasting his new son with a pint of Guinness at The Masons Arms pub across the road from the hospital, said: "I'm doing fine."

He later added that he was over the moon at the birth.

It has been reported that Liam pushed a camera into the face of a photographer who tried to take a close-up picture.

Freelance photographer John Lillington,43, later said he would be pressing charges against Gallagher.

'No significance'

Liam already has one son, Lennon, from his failed marriage to Patsy Kensit.

Lennon was named after Beatles star John, but Gene has no particular significance, according to the couple's spokesman.

Gene Appleton Gallagher weighed in at 6lb 3oz.

Appleton, 26, was previously engaged to pop singer Robbie Williams.

Appleton's former bandmate Melanie Blatt gave birth to her child Lilyella at the same clinic.