Derval O’Rourke, Jacqui Hurley and Mairéad Ronan on the importance of learning to say no

I knew with Jacqui that she would always be honest, with a great mixture of kindness and craic.

I first met Mairéad on the set of Ireland’s Fittest Family, I immediately gravitated towards her as she was so warm and always so capable — a person who would go above and beyond doing her job to make you look great at yours.

Both women have done so much in the past decade whilst navigating life in the public eye, balancing careers with kids, and going into different parts of their lives.

Derval O'Rourke

On making hard decisions, your time, and valuing yourself

Jacqui: I have this note in my phone, and it’s called ‘things to consider’. I don’t know if you remember this Derval: It was March 5, 2018, and I had taken on too much — was saying yes to anything.

I was chatting to you about [whether I’d take on a new job] and you were just like: ‘Look, I have this philosophy, these are the things that I do.’

You put it in a text and I copied and pasted it and put it in my phone...

You said: ‘What’s the end game? Realistically, how does this look in five years? Is it what I want? And if not, why am I in the race for it? That’s number one.

‘Number two: How much money do I need each month to do what I want to do? I work backwards from that figure instead of working forwards.

‘Three: Work/Life balance — how much am I working/how much am I living? Living is important.

‘And four: Does it satisfy my ambition? I’m really ambitious so if I’m doing mindless shit that other people can control that really grates on me. I’d rather be a little poorer each month and do the things that make me want to get up in the morning.’

I kept it in my phone because it’s like my lessons to live by now. And I probably never told you thanks for doing that for me, because it made me actually reassess how I think about everything.

Derval: At that stage in 2018, I would have been four years retired. I had done what you were in the middle of. I had done everything.

I’d seen both of you do your jobs. And I was like: ‘Okay, no, I definitely can’t do those. They’re really, really hard.’

But then I didn’t know what was for me? So I was doing all the stuff, tons of things. I was still really ambitious. I was figuring out the races I didn’t want to be in, and I remember watching you and knowing you were trying to position yourself for certain presenting gigs in RTÉ Sports.

I knew that wasn’t a race I want to be in... so what do I do? I was trying to figure out all of that. But I think, up until recently, I still slip back in...

Mairéad: We were on the phone recently and Derval said: ‘I have to go to this gig, I’m up for an award and I really should be in the room because you know, I’m nominated... but I am so fucking busy this week and the kids need me and Peter’s busy.’

I was just like: ‘Do you want to be there?’

You said: ‘No, actually I don’t want to be there,’ and I said, ‘then there’s nothing to talk about... say you can’t be there.’

Jacqui: But that’s a lot easier said than done. I think what you did [leaving Ireland’s Fittest Family] Mairéad is unbelievably admirable, right? Because you’d obviously been thinking for ages, I need to get out of it. But how do you pull the trigger? Because you’re walking away from something that you also love ... and you’re saying no to being in the room with things.

Mairéad: I sound like Oprah now, but when you say yes to something, you’re saying no to something else, right?

So I kept asking myself, what am I saying yes to?

And I’m constantly saying no to the kids. I say no to the kids all the time. People would have looked at the show on Today FM, 12pm - 2pm, and they go’ oh, that’s lovely’. They think you rock up at 11.30am and you’re gone at 2.10pm... if that was the case I would still be there. I’d be there until I’m put in a box — but that’s not the case. It was 9.30am, so it was straight out the gap in the morning and you would never get home till 5 or 5.30pm — and then you’re into the handover from the childminder.

Like every house, up and down the country, it’s such a common thing. And it was just getting harder and harder and harder. And I thought it was gonna get easier the older the kids were getting, but it was actually getting harder...

Jacqui: Because you’re missing more.

Mairéad: Yeah. And Eliza had started school. And I desperately wanted another baby, yet here I am, I have two babies at home.

Why am I not with the two babies at home? I’m trying to have this other baby, when I don’t actually have time for this other baby. That baby never came.

All of those things were swirling around in my head going... you’re long enough in the game to just step back for a little bit and do other things, like bursts of work here and there. And if those bursts of work dry up, then you’ll deal with that. It was scary, but it was the best decision I’ve ever made.

Jacqui: It’s perspective. You can just actually sit back and go: ‘Do I want to do this?’

Mairéad: It took a long time to get used to. It was a year of trying to figure out, what am I doing all day? I did something stupid that first year, I said yes to everything. I filled the time that was normally taken up by Today FM with other things and then six months in, I was like: ‘Ahh! You’re doing it again!’

I was always running, and I couldn’t turn it into a slow stroll.

On balancing a career with motherhood

Mairéad: Vicky Phelan’s illness was in the news the whole time I was in Today FM. And every time I saw Vicky Phelan, I was just like: ‘Oh my god, there’s this woman doing everything she possibly can to stay alive a little bit longer — to spend more time with her family.’

And I’m there gone out the gap, again — like loads of moms and dads are every day — and I just don’t want to be.

If I was in that position, that awful position Vicky Phelan was in, I just kept asking myself: Would I wish I did more radio shows or I did more homework?

It was just an obvious one.

Jacqui: The one thing I found with my job was, I was gone a lot — all the time — on a load of weekends and I was like: ‘Something has to give right?’

And there is a real challenge when you get the thing that you really want. Like for me, the rugby — that came so out of the blue. I didn’t get the Sunday Game the first time around.

Nothing is linear — my path definitely wasn’t — I didn’t get the gig that I wanted, I thought it was all over and was going to leave and all that kind of stuff, right?

But then the path went so different. The rugby came along. And with that, it was unbelievable, but it was so many more weekends.

And I was like: ‘I just can’t do this. Something’s gonna have to give.’

That’s when I had decided I was going to step back from Sunday Sport. I remember I had done this interview and I was talking about being back at home with my children and I was like: ‘This is going to be great.’

And a couple of days later, my boss came to me and was like: ‘Can you do the Sunday Game?’

I was like: ‘Are you actually fucking mad? I just told you I wanted all this time,’ and he was like: ‘Yeah, but I’ve already come up with something else for you so you’re going to do less of this, less of this, you’re going to be working way less weekends...’

In my head, I was like: ‘Right, well, how do I justify this to me, to my children, and to everyone else?’

‘And it has to be right for the family.

‘It can’t be just about you.’

But also there’s a little bit of the public element of people being like: ‘Geez, yer wan said she wanted to be home with her family, and now I’m turning on the telly and there she is...’

Mairéad: But you have to stick with what works for you and your family.

Jacqui: I said to [my husband] Shane: ‘Why do I care?

I really had to battle with that though. Because I was embarrassed at first. I was like: Jesus, people are going to be thinking I’m working more!

In real terms, I know I’m not, I know I’m at home way more with the kids. I collect them. I drop them to school every day. I collect them every day. I am at home to do the homework with them all the time.

I’m around in the mornings on a Saturday and a Sunday. I coach them both in GAA. We take them to soccer. We’re both involved in everything.

I am there — I would say — more than most parents that I know, I spend more time with them.

So why am I feeling guilty about being able to do my career as well?

I probably felt less guilty about it at the end of the year. I took a month off after the World Cup, and spent lots of time with them and it was lovely.

Mairéad: How did you feel at the end of that month? Were you itching to get back?

Jacqui: Yeah, it was weird. Like I’m back into it now again, and it’s been lovely, but I needed the time off. I just found with taking over the Sunday Game... there’s a big profile that goes with it.

It’s more than what I’ve ever had before in my job, there’s more recognition from the public and there’s more stuff that goes with it.

So I just found I’m working a lot more this year, not just when I was on the telly — but also when I was off the telly. People probably don’t see that, the amount of prep, particularly when you’re doing multiple sports. So I am definitely happy to be getting back into it, but I enjoyed the time off and I needed it.

Derval: That’s the other reality of it, it’s the juggle of everything. I think when I ended my first career, the athletics career, I was disappointed.

I felt I had to prove to myself I could be valuable in another arena. Now I don’t feel like that.

It turns out I can do more than just jumping hurdles. I know that now, 10 years on, and now that I know that, I can restructure things.

Even with the business, what I would have been doing in the business two years ago, I am not doing now.

Mairéad: You’re learning all the time.

Derval: But I have to keep coming back to that point of: Who am I in the middle of it all?

I’m definitely more with the kids now than I would have been before, and I do enjoy it.

But I do have days where I think it would be way easier to go into an office, get really stuck into a project, and when it’s completed have everyone tell me that it’s great... but that lets the ball drop at home.

And Mairéad you might think you’re more in cruise mode now, but the podcast is still successful?

Mairéad: Yeah, and I work with brands all the time. It’s definitely more than I ever thought it could be for me, and I still feel I am in a cruisey place. I’ve always been hustling, always. Having three jobs was just the norm for me.

Jacqui: Do you not think, though, that you’re in that place because you can be? Because you did the hustle? You have a business that’s working while you’re sleeping. Your phone could ring there any minute now from multiple production companies, brands, TV stations/radio stations who want to work with you, because you’ve hustled over the years — so you can be cruisey.

On non-negotiables

Derval: One is that there has to be a level of enjoyment in the work. So say covering the Olympics, you know what an animal that is... I loved it.

It’s so funny, it’s so entertaining, it feels like part of my soul, I adore the Olympics.

It doesn’t have to bring Olympic-level joy, because that’s only every four years, but I can’t go in going ‘this is a pain’, it has to bring a bit of joy to me.

The next one is that I have an element of control over the time. It can’t be: This could be 14 hours or it could be 22 hours — I have to know the details.

Ten years ago, I would have said: ‘Of course I’ll do it, of course’— myself and Mairéad call it the dancing monkey stuff. I’m not like that anymore. I won’t be a dance monkey.

I’m professional enough and I am accomplished enough that I need the detailing and I’ll say yes or no to it then.

Jacqui: For me, if I’m not enjoying it, I just won’t do it. I just have too much time spent away from my family, driving up and down the country doing things, to please everybody else.

Shane would always say to me: ‘You spend too much time thinking about helping other people to do what they want to do, instead of what’s going to make it easiest for you.’

And I probably spent too much time in the past, worrying about that and trying to make sure that everybody else was looked after and I’ll do that for them, and not look after myself.

Now my non-negotiables are I exercise every day, I have to do something for me. I found — after having children in particular, and a lot of women probably identify with this — I really looked after their needs, but I wasn’t looking after mine. I didn’t get back to sport. So I was like, I need to re-insert sport back into my life in a really meaningful way for me.

Because it makes me work better. It makes me be a better mom.

If I don’t go to the gym, I’m a worse mom that day.

So things like having exercise and enjoyment in my life is crucial.

And the other thing... my brother died, the youngest person in the house. It’s not natural that that person goes first.

It really makes me evaluate situations where I go: ‘Why would I wait?’

If there’s something we’re thinking about doing, we just pull the trigger. Shane calls it ‘go time’.

I rarely hesitate on big decisions because I’m like: ‘Do you want to go? Yeah, fuck it, we’re doing that.’

Don’t hang around on those decisions. Just make them and have the best life that you possibly can.

Mairéad: Mine is all around time. I think I spent so many years handing my time to other people on a plate. That comes from different places; a working class background, my mam died the night before my 21st birthday — so I felt like I had to grow up overnight.

So my non-negotiable is very like Derval’s.

Before I say yes to a gig now, I look not just at the gig and the time but I look at either side of it.

If there’s something on a Thursday, I will look at what’s on Wednesday and Friday.

Since I’ve done that, I do things better. And the gym. That’s a new one for me since last year. It is every Monday and Wednesday night.

I train in a female-only gym in a class that breaks me every single week, but I hate missing it.

And time with [husband] Louis. [My son] Dara has always been in our relationship because when I met Louis, Dara was three years old. So we really made an effort the last two years to get time on our own.

It’s that reminder that I really like hanging out with him. We’re not just people who do duties for the kids. Cooking, cleaning, washing, beds, taxing... we’re actually still best mates and love hanging out together and I still really fancy him.

Jacqui: Isn’t that great to find that out? All that time that you spend planning stuff for the kids and not thinking about what are your needs? You need to have your night, where you’re just connecting and not chatting about the kids. That’s why we go on holidays every year for a week together on our own.

Just so we can have time to be like, yeah I do really like you.

Mairéad: Yeah it’s nice to have the reminder. It started off as a bit of an effort. We needed to put stuff in the diary, like Thursday next week, until it
becomes a habit. Otherwise, the weeks just slip by...