We’re making ourselves at home in Mary Kennedy’s Dublin home. It’s early morning, but still she has her famous buns baked – hot out of the oven – with coffee on the brew. Her sister Deirdre pops her head around the door to say goodbye; her daughter Lucy joins us for chats; their dog Bear rolls on her back for tummy rubs. This is a warm, welcoming home.
Mary’s next road trip will begin once this chat wraps later today. She’s hitting the road again, which she loves doing, and which she has been doing for years, travelling the highways and byways of this country presenting Nationwide, before she was forced to retire five years ago, aged 65. Life, she says, is all about balance, and for Mary, part of that balance comes from experiences and adventures. And, these experiences and adventures come partly from these road trips, which are a reprise of sorts for that restless soul of hers. So, it’s off to Limerick later to visit one of her four children and a gaggle of grandchildren, then it’s on to Inis Mór to see her sister, then up to Donegal where she’ll begin filming her fourth season of TG4’s Moving West, and finally she will wind up in Dublin, where before making it home. “Her retirement is a hoax”, her daughter Lucy jokes, and we all laugh!
As it turns out, there has been much laughter for Mary this side of retirement. But at the time, five years ago, she wasn’t certain of how life would unfold. “I really struggled with my mental health around that time”, she tells us here today. “You don’t know what’s on the other side of the door when you retire, now as it happens it’s been a wonderful door that opened. Life has become really rich.” And it’s made richer by the people in her life, by the people she meets, whether that’s out and about, or on her brilliant podcast which she co-hosts with former President, Mary McAleese, Changing Times: The Allenwood Conversations. “I do think it’s important when you get to this age and stage in life”, she tells us, “to have things that push you outside your comfort zone.”
We talk about moving house, moving parts, changing times and changing your perception.
Mary, how are you, as your sister Deirdre would say, in your mind, body and spirit?
I am very well, the summer was just delightful because the weather was so lovely. I had some nice trips around the country which I love. I also did the Camino in Spain and had a week in France with friends. But I’ve been wondering lately why my life feels so busy now and it’s because there’s another layer that has been brought into my life which is the next generation – the grandchildren. So with the freedom of the summer, it was great to be able to spend some time with them, to go down to Limerick too and for them to come up here and wreck the house!
The house doesn’t look wrecked at all, but we do spot Lego figurines and fridge drawings…it feels like such a happy home.
Well, thank you, it was three years ago when I moved in here, and aged 67, it felt like a fresh start. It was energising and purposeful and it was a blank canvas when I came in because the garden hadn’t been done, nothing had really been done. I think I was very lucky, but I was also very decisive – I wanted to stay in the same parish, I wanted to be close to my friends, I wanted it a certain size. But the thing I wasn’t expecting was that there’s a whole community of young couples and small children and Paddy, my oldest grandchild, has friends here when he comes up from Limerick. So that’s something I hadn’t envisioned and I’m very grateful for. The old house needed work done on it and I could have done that with the ‘lump sum’, as they say! But the garden would have gotten too big for me and the house was too big. It takes me seven minutes now to mow the lawn; it used to take two hours. I’m very glad I did it, I’m so, so glad.
And some of the family are very close by, aren’t they?
They are. One of my sons Eoin and his wife Nicola are close, my brother is near too and my other son Tom and his wife Shona have moved into this estate with their little girl Charlotte who’s two-and-a-half. And it’s great because when she comes home from the baby minder, maybe at about five, I can pop around, maybe for about half-an-hour, to see her. And when she gets older, she can come over herself.
During the shoot – aside from us being there – there was your daughter Lucy, your sister Deirdre, and then there was your friendly pup Bear looking for tummy rubs… it was a busy house.
And I appreciate the life in this house. I don’t have a partner anymore for almost a year now, so I’m doing things on my own again. But I’m very lucky, even though I’m shy by nature, I can just breathe in and go for things rather than push back. So, I really appreciate having a huge body of friends and family with no notions and no formality; the more the merrier has always been the mantra. I came back from Tyrone today and this evening I have a really good friend Eleanor Shanley, the singer, who also sang at Tom and Shona’s wedding, coming up stay. We’re going to pop over and see Tom and Shona too. And then tomorrow I’m going to see my other daughter Eva and her family in Limerick.
It sounds like a nice life Mary.
It’s grand! But there are hardships too, of course!
As per usual you had made us your famous fairycakes. You’ve been making these same fairycakes for years, since the kids were young and you were leaving early to go to work on Nationwide.
It was kind of a carrot to get them out of bed, y’know the smell of the buns downstairs! Because you see, I had to leave to go to work. Now they were all in secondary school and Eva was in college, but I just wanted them to have that sense of home. I never felt I had to be at home with them morning, noon and night, it just wouldn’t have suited me, and also, I had to work. So, my thinking was when I was leaving for Nationwide in the morning, that there was a warmth with cakes that had just come out of the oven. And also, just to let them know that I loved them and that they were the most important thing in my life.
Talking about tight bonds, you’re also very close to your sister Deirdre, just like your mum was very close to her sister, too…
Yes, it’s true, they lived next door to each other and they had a stile in the garden over the wall for easy access! They used to have their tea together after dinner every single day, and one day it would be one house and the next day the other house. And we always had Christmas together, which has kind of persisted, because I always have Christmas Day with my brother and his wife and their family, and we alternate it year on year.
Where are you this year?
His house! I had a big crowd here last year.
Feels criminal to be talking about the C word now so let’s come back to the present, to September, and let us ask you this, as a former school teacher do you still get that back-to-school feeling?
When I was driving to the hairdressers this morning the first thing I noticed was that the traffic was heavier! But I do have a sense of structure returning, and I like that. That said I loved this summer, I hate the wet summers, but I thought this was the most delightful relaxing happy summer. I like autumn too, I like it all the way up to Christmas and then I decline in January.
Like most of us! Aren’t you back to work this month too, filming Moving West for TG4?
Yes, absolutely, it really is like going back to school because we start filming early September! I’m really looking forward to it, it’s the fourth season and it was a COVID-inspired programme but the response has been so huge, there’s never a problem getting people to take part. I love learning about peoples’ lives and hearing their stories; I believe that there is no hope of joy except in human relationships. And the lovely thing about the people in Moving West is that they are bringing life to small communities. I’m also a huge advocate for the beauty of this country and the sense of community we have and that is at its pinnacle in rural Ireland.
If it wasn’t for the commitment of family, would you move west or more rural yourself?
If I didn’t have children or work, I’d love to live on the island, [Inis Mór where her sister lives] but I don’t know if Deirdre, my sister, would be too happy to hear that! I do like a mix and I do get a lot of opportunities to travel and to be in rural Ireland. And even Deirdre likes the balance of coming up to me, it works both ways. The mix is good, it feeds your soul.
Hitting the road again for work now, do you look forward to the adventure of it all?
Oh yeah, absolutely, and meeting new people and the craic you have with the crew – I love it.
On your roadtrips, what do you listen to?
It depends on the time of day, I used to spend a lot of time in the evening in the car and I used to love listening to, God rest his soul, Sean Rocks. I never met him but I just loved his programme, he was sound and he was interesting, he definitely made people feel at ease. I also like morning radio, I’m more of a talk radio person, I don’t listen to music that much. And I love during the championships listening to the matches, I think the best pictures are on radio, especially when Marty Morrissey is on commentary! I sometimes make phone calls in the car but I love silence too. I love being in the car with my thoughts. I can go three or four hours without turning on any radio.
On thoughts, have you thought much about what your daughter Lucy said to us earlier, that your retirement is a hoax!
[Laughing] I have lots of time to myself, I really do. I do chunks of work and then there’s lots of time off, truly there is! The retirement is no hoax! But I am writing another book, it’s for publication October next year. We have the contract signed, we have a working title, I’ve got to get busy with that now, too. But I do have lots of time, promise. Take Moving West, it will take about eight weeks of work but they don’t all happen 9-5, Monday to Friday, and I think that mix is lovely. And the podcasts happen in spurts as well; we generally do two a day. Because Mary [McAleese] is away a good bit too. And then there’s the writing, I do a column once a month for Ireland’s Own. I do think it’s important when you get to this age and stage in life to have things that kind of push you outside your comfort zone. I’ve found that empowering and I find it helps my sense of self and is good for my mental health, because y’know, I’m like everybody else, you have the good days and the bad days. People may look at me and think, ‘Ah, sure your life is grand’, it’s not always. I can have very, very low moods. I couldn’t survive without the help of my counsellor who I attend.
Yes, you told the RTÉ Guide that you have “ups and downs with mental well-being”, that you struggled when your marriage ended and with turning 70.
And with retiring at 65. Because you don’t know what’s on the other side of the door when you retire, now as it happens it’s been a wonderful door that opened. But there are times when you let yourself give into other peoples’ perception of, ‘Oh, you’re a retiree now’, and you can be made feel old and you should never let that get into your head because it can be very debilitating. I look at myself as living this stage of life, and living it as positively and as healthily as I can. Some of the main elements have to be friendships, relationships and laughter.
How do friendships change when you get older?
You have more time. I also find as I get older that I am more open to talking about things that concern me more deeply, like showing vulnerability in friendships and conversations, whereas before I would have kept a stiff upper lip. But as you get more mature you realise that the wisdom lies in opening up and in letting people in and going in when people need you. I feel I can be more open now and more honest. I’ve got to the stage now where I really don’t care what people think.
That must be liberating.
It is, it’s very liberating, there’s a lightness to life now. Life is for living and health is the only type of wealth I’m interested in.
Going back to vulnerability, we thought it was interesting to hear you say that at the beginning you were terrified at the prospect of presenting the podcast Changing Times: The Allenwood Conversations, alongside your good friend, Mary McAleese.
Yes, and she said the same, that she was terrified too because, I, in her eyes, was someone who was used to doing that sort of thing. But, yeah, I just felt nervous, she’s such a huge intellect, which I knew already, because I’d known her quite well, we’d been friends since 2008 when we went on the first Camino together. I was really in awe of her, but our friendship has actually deepened. But yeah, at the beginning, I was terrified.
As you were presenting the Eurovision solo in 1995! But for someone, who is as shy as you say you are, your determination made you fight for that presenting slot, despite having lost out in auditions twice before.
Yeah, there was a deep desire to do it, that’s what kept me going back. I knew, and this was something I would not have said at the time or even until quite recently, but I knew that if I got to do it, that I would do it well. You have to have a certain amount of confidence and also to be able to show your vulnerability to be able to say something like that. I knew I could do a good job of it – and I did. My brother John jokes that they just gave me the gig because I wouldn’t go away!
You’re a trailblazer for women in broadcasting, can you see that?
No, I just can’t. I mean all I did was embrace opportunities… I was a teacher who saw this ad in the paper for part-time continuity announcers and I said, sure I’ll give it a go. I’m no trailblazer, but I look to people like Marian Finucane, Lord rest her, who was actually the person who nominated me for membership of the Union when I joined RTÉ. Also, Miriam O’Callaghan. She really is unbelievable, she’s just so positive and so welcoming and so appreciative. The other ones that are great for support are the women writers who I wouldn’t consider myself in the same category as, but the Cathy Kellys, the Sheila O’Flanagans, the Patrcia Scanlans, the Marian Keyes’ of the world, I admire them and I admire how they can write fiction, I just couldn’t do it.
Miriam O’Callaghan’s memoir is dropping next month, when’s yours coming?!
I can’t wait for Miriam’s book, I’ll be first in line to get it! But no memoir from me! Not yet anyway! My new book is about this totally different stage in life, about older life, which I find very rich. The kind of working title is a quote I use frequently from Lady Diana Cooper and it goes like this, “First you are young; then you are middle-aged, then you are old, now you are wonderful.” You are an accumulation of all the ages and stages and high points and low points of your life.
How do you best mind yourself these days?
Counselling is one. I used to run, not anymore, but I walk and I listen to podcasts. I also do weight training with Karl Henry and it’s online because he’s moved down to Cork, I think weight training is important because you want to be able to take on situations when they arise and I want to keep going for as long as possible. One of the things I really dread is not being here for the grandchildren’s big occasions in life. Like will I be here for Paddy, who is the eldest, will I be here when he gets married, and the answer is probably no. I dread that. So, I want to keep going for as long as I can. Staying positive, having friends, having laughter and as Karl Henry always says, use the 80/20 rule, you’re good 80 percent of the time and for the other 20 per cent, you let it rip! Self care is really important, and you’re not having notions if you do it, it’s essential.
