The ocean is glittering as we round the corner into Spidéal, Co. Galway. We watch the sparkling waves lap hungrily onto the sandy beach, the sun high in the patchwork cloudy sky. We get it now, we understand exactly why Síle Seoige came home.
We turn off the main road and keep an eye out for her house. “It’s the one with the Cork flag”, she’d told us. “I’m a bit cringe about that but hey, marriage is about compromise”, she’d laughed. Flag spotted, we pull in, step out of the car and inhale deeply that air of the west. It’s got a different quality round here.
Síle’s journey ‘home’ has been years in the making. We know she’ll laugh when we say that we’ve been forever hearing about her ‘forever home’! We did her very first ‘at-home shoot’ not long after she’d met her life partner, Cork man and a member of an Garda Síochána, Damien O’Farrell. Back then the two of them lived (and commuted) from a Semi-D in Lucan, Co. Dublin. Finances, family and that feeling of freedom were always pushing them west though so when their little fella, Cathal (7) was four months old, they bought this site that VIP has just stepped on to, which is a couple of minutes up the road from where Síle’s parents still live.
We open the front door and let ourselves in. It’s massive at 3,000 sq ft plus. Windows stretch the gauntlet allowing that sparkling sea to energise this stunning beach-house home. We spy Síle perched up by the island getting her glam on, but we tell her she must wait while we first explore around like an excited child. It really is wow. What makes it even more special is that this build has been such a labour of love. It’s been two and a half years since they first broke ground.
And for those 30 months while they waited Síle, Damien, Cathal and Clíodhna (2) lived in a mobile home up the road. In the summer months they melted, in the winter months, they froze. But all the hardship was worth it when you see this place today.
So, yep, this is special. Also because Síle’s best friend is shooting these pictures today. Síle and Siobhan Coyne have been best buds since they were 14 years old. They met when they both were waitresses in a seafood restaurant in Spiddal village.
For 16 years Siobhan worked as an accountant but then gave it all up to follow a picture dream. That dream has been going to plan and work has been flying. But today is Siobhan’s first editorial cover shoot and her energy is as bouncy as those sea sparkles! The following day we return for our chat and to a remarkably different ocean view. The Atlantic looks moody now, as if it’s a bit cross.
Over tea and biscuits we talk about mobile life, about how Síle became an unintentional activist for Palestine, she tell us how yoga once saved her life and why podcasting (Ready to Be Real) has enriched it. VIP are the first guests over the threshold, thank you for the invite, Síle! This ‘forever home’ has been a labour of love that stretches way beyond the two-year build. It must feel magic to finally be in now? It does. We are so grateful but still in shock. We’re only five weeks in and it feels surreal because it’s still a work in progress. Anybody who has been through the process of buying or building a house knows how the bills add up and how you just run out of funds. But it’s an amazing feeling because we bought this site when Cathal (he’s just gone seven) was four months old. It was two-and-a-half years from the time we broke ground to us being in now.
It’s a big space, 3,000 square feet plus. Did you feel like running around like a mad woman when you first stepped through the door? Because for the two years before, you lived in a mobile home, up the road.
We were joking about that when we initially moved in, saying we’d find each other in the corner! It’s funny how you adapt though. We adapted to mobile life quickly and life outside of the mobile we have taken to quickly, too. But the kids don’t know themselves. Cathal’s bedroom in the mobile was small and every time he’d move he’d whack off the wall. Now Cathal has his own space, he loves the freedom. In saying that the kids loved to be in the mobile too because there was a charm to it. We actually coped quite well, which surprised both Damien and I.
A good omen for the future if you can manage to thrive in cramped living conditions while raising two young children and while working!
True! Now, we definitely had our fair share of ups and downs but we survived!
If you were having a barney, what did you do? Where did you go?
You have seen us in reality and how we do bicker like normal couples but we weirdly got on so well. I think it was because psychologically we knew we had no option, like there was no option to sleep in the spare room if you were having a strop! There was no spare room! And I wasn’t going to sleep up on the couch! It was just head down and get on with it. In the summer months, it was like being in an oven, and on a cold day, in a freezer! It was an old single-glazed mobile so when it was cold there’d be ice on the inside which you’d have to break off! You’d come in and see your own breath!
How did you stay warm?
We’d have heaters on but often we’d blow fuses and then we’d have no electricity and you’d be trying to make Weetabix for the kids in the morning in the pitch black! At the time it wasn’t hilarious but now we can look back on it and laugh. But we were lucky because we had a goal we were working towards.
We’re imagining the Father Ted episode in the mobile when they’re all doing the Riverdance (remind yourself and look it up for a laugh) bumping into each other!
[Laughing] All the shuffling around each other, I know! But do you know what? It was perfect for what we needed. If we were to go back in time, even if we didn’t know we were going to spend two years in it, I don’t think we would have changed a thing. It was a great leveller, great to keep you grounded and it allowed us to appreciate this house even more because when we moved in it was WOW.
Your interior designer Tiffany Jones believes that the landscape should influence the colour palette. She also says that you should find out what the star of the show is and work your design around that. The star of the show here is clearly the ocean…
Yes, the ocean is the star of the show! And the beach house vibe, with a neutral palette, was the plan because of that. We wanted to create a really relaxing space and Tiffany helped us do that.
The ocean yesterday was sparkling. Today it’s brooding. How magnificent that you get to watch it from your bedroom window.
I know. Every morning pulling back the curtains and being able to see the Atlantic instantly makes you feel grateful. The quality of life living in Spiddal is something I don’t take for granted. The beach is a five-minute walk, the kids love the sea, we’ve even an outdoor shower. The benefits of cold water are not lost on me. Even just splashing in the sea with the kids I always come out in a better mood.
Is your mood generally better since moving out of Dublin back to your hometown?
Absolutely it is. We decided to move out of Dublin for several reasons, the obvious being I’m originally from Connemara, Damien is from Cork, but also it was proving too expensive to stay living in Dublin. We were living in a 3-bed Semi-D in Lucan and for us to move into a bigger home in Dublin, we just couldn’t afford it. Moving out of Dublin and down the country, while the house has obviously cost a lot of money, the equivalent home in Dublin would be well beyond our reach.
In time there will be a podcast studio here too and that will be another game changer for you because the podcasting has you busy. In a recent episode – with the Fabulous Pharmacist Laura Dowling – you spoke about a lot of things, but one of the topics covered was the perimenopause – have you arrived?!
My cycle is totally out of whack. Brain fog is huge. I know we have so many tabs in our minds open but I’m walking into a room and completely forgetting why I am there. I’m finding I have to take notes because if I don’t, it’s gone, poof! I’m definitely feeling I’m in it now. I’m here! I’ve arrived! I am 45 so it’s not beyond the realms of possibility. And as we know, peri can be years long, even 10 years long before we even hit menopause. I think the difference nowadays is that we are so well educated on it.
How did our poor mothers survive…?
I know! And it wasn’t even normalised so that they could discuss it with each other. There was a huge sense of shame if you couldn’t keep it together. Gráinne, my sister, made an amazing documentary with TG4 on the topic and we do know that a huge proponent of women in their midlife do suffer from mental health issues – imagine going through that all alone, with no support?
Support is here today, thankfully – look, and you will find. Also HRT and supplements. What do you take?
I take Laura Dowling’s Peri and Meno and I take magnesium religiously. I have been a big fan of magnesium for a while. I recorded a podcast series some time ago with Catherine O’Keefe, who goes by the name Wellness Warrior, and that was all about the menopause and how magnesium is your friend.
Yoga is your friend too. As a trained yoga teacher would you ever consider opening up a studio here in Spidéal one day? It seems like the perfect spot for some healing.
It might be something I’ll explore in time. What I did do years ago was I facilitated a chant circle every Wednesday evening.
If we hung around here long enough would we catch you chanting?
I chant in the shower, especially when I’m cold-showering. I find it so much easier to withstand the cold when I chant. If I’m struggling I do chant, a few om’s will get me through. It does something to your brain; takes you somewhere else.
What would make you struggle and make you need to chant?
Like a lot of us, I struggle with feelings of overwhelm and stress, the to-do list getting longer and longer.
Do you think you wound up in this self-care/wellness world because you needed it – for you?
Completely. I decided to train in yoga simply because I fell into it after I went through a breakup and lost my job, and this was even before the thyroid cancer diagnosis at age 32. I was in really bad shape. I threw myself into a yoga class because I knew I had to do something. I was lucky, it was the right class for me, there was a lot of meditation in it too and a lot of pulling the blanket over my head and sobbing on the mat. It’s not a leap for me to say that yoga saved my life. I was a mess and if I hadn’t done it, I don’t know what I would have done.
It feels as though you’re good at taking care of yourself today though?
I’m probably better than I was, yeah. On paper, you would think that maybe somebody trained in yoga would know what to do, but Damien is sometimes far better at dealing with stress than I am. For him, cycling is his meditation. But you know in recent times I have been confronted and asked myself what yoga actually is, what does it actually mean? Because this whole realm of self-care I do struggle with. And while I do think it’s very important to look after ourselves, we are no good if we are not using our resourced selves to care for others. Really when it comes down to it when we leave the earth what will matter, will it be, ‘Oh, I really looked after myself, I had really positive mental health’. Or will it be, ‘The impact that I had on people, what I left behind’.
But what about the oxygen mask situation where to care for others we must care for ourselves first?
Comedian Tadhg Hickey (he makes politically charged viral videos, check him out at @tadhghickeycml) spoke about this several months ago and I have huge respect for him. He said people have been asking him how his mental health is (Tadhg is an alcoholic and has been very open about his struggles) and he said his mental health has never been better because he feels like he’s doing something that matters, doing something that feels like it’s helping. I think people underestimate the power of giving back. I do think that the whole collective piece is an important one that often the wellness industry likes to ignore because a lot of what the wellness industry is about is rooted in colonialism, that’s the truth of it.
What do you mean ‘it’s rooted in colonialism’?
The wellness industry is white privilege and very patriarchal in its roots. Because if you look at it, a lot of the stuff that comes out of the wellness industry, particularly stuff I would have said myself before like, ‘You are the master of your own destiny, you are the architect of your own life’ – but are you really? You are if you live in a society where you are given the basic rights of freedom. But if you live in other parts of the world and those freedoms are removed, that’s not the case. So I’ve been confronted with all of these thoughts in recent times. There’s a huge amount of bullshit in the wellness world. Lots of preying on people’s vulnerabilities.
Talking about vulnerable people – you have been very vocal about the genocide in Palestine and have said that not-speaking-out, whether you piss people off or not, is a non-negotiable for you. What has the reaction been online and off, to your activism?
I would never have identified with being an activist before October 9th, but if you were to look up what I’m doing and how I’m using my platform (@sileseoige) it is a form of activism, so I suppose I do identify as an activist now. Speaking out is a non-negotiable for me, it’s a no-brainer. The majority of people have been hugely supportive, I’ve certainly gained followers on Instagram but I’ve certainly lost followers too. When you speak up about anything you make yourself vulnerable to those who will disagree and there are plenty of people who will. At times I do have to block people for my own mental health because the DM’s can get a bit relentless and even though I’ve been in the media industry for a long time, and I feel like I’ve developed a thicker skin, I am also not a robot. So yes, there is a bit of backlash but one I am very willing to take. It’s nothing in comparison to what Palestinians are enduring every single day.
You really are mining deep these days, asking yourself big questions and then challenging your thoughts.
At the moment I am reading a brilliant book called White Women by New York Times bestseller Regina Jackson, who will be in Dublin in October and I’m going to try to get her for the podcast. This is a confronting book about how if you are white and you grew up primarily in a white society, then you are racist and there’s no point denying it. But it asks, do you want to do better? If so, this book is a guidebook to doing better. I also spoke to another amazing woman recently, Farah Nabulsi who’s British Palestinian. She was at the Galway Film Fleadh and her movie The Teacher won Best International Film. It will be in cinemas in September and it’s outstanding. Her perspective is really interesting because both her parents are Palestinian but she was born and reared in London. I do try to use the podcast to have conversations that might challenge or educate me and the listener.
We’re going to have to head off now because you’ve a gig to get to (Leftfield with her pal Siobhan) but tell us before we go about a special podcast you recorded recently with Roseanna Ruane, mum of gorgeous Saoírse who sadly passed away from cancer earlier this year.
I feel truly honoured that Roseanna trusted me with this conversation. It was so raw and deeply emotional and no doubt extremely difficult for her but I have huge admiration and deep gratitude towards her because a conversation like this is a wake-up call to all of us, to be grateful for what we have and to really live life and make every moment count. Sometimes we need to be reminded of that. You’ll find this episode wherever you get your podcasts from the beginning of August. I do hope it inspires.
