RTÉ's Mary Kennedy on embracing the ageing process

IT’S the question many are tempted to ask a woman who’s ageing gracefully on our television screens: has she had a little bit of ‘help’?

RTÉ presenter Mary Kennedy lets out a yelp at the thought of any needle coming within close proximity of her body — not to talk of her face.

So that’s a no? “No! I will be heading off to Mozambique with the Nationwide team and I have to get some shots and I’m petrified at the thought of the sight of a syringe... I’ll have to turn away,” she says.

It’s a product of the image conscious times we live in that we suspect Botox is used regularly by most public figures — especially as they move on in years.

But although Mary, now 57, and a mother of four young adults aged 22 to 30, is concerned about taking good care of her skin and worries, like most women, about her weight, she has come to embrace the ageing process.

Back in her late 40s it wasn’t so easy at first: “You know, in the beginning when you start to notice the wrinkles and you want to lose a few pounds and it doesn’t take a week any more, it’s a bit of a shock. And back then I tried to retrieve how it had been for me — zipping around and with no spare tyre to contend with. But now I’ve stopped looking backwards and live in the moment; I don’t look at how many new wrinkles there are, but how deep this year’s crop is.”

Though Mary always seems so vital, like the majority of menopausal women, she has had her own personal struggles with the life transition.

She was young — only 46 — when she first got hot flushes. “I’ve gone through the seven dwarves of menopause — itchy, bitchy, sweaty, sleepy, bloated, forgetful and all-dried-up — I’ve had them all,” she says, not quite gleefully, but with an openness women share when discussing life’s challenges with each other.

She took a herbal treatment at first but then her mother died and she moved on to HRT for a brief period before just “getting on with it” for the past decade, opening the window of the car and fanning herself when she feels that gush of heat.

Déanaigí Lá Fhéile Pádraig a cheiliúradh agus tacaigí le deonú orgán. #gaeilge pic.twitter.com/SSyGvFNdaI

— Irish Kidney Association (@IrishKidneyAs) March 17, 2014

It can’t be easy when life is so busy. Next week, for instance, Mary will be launching her voluntary role as ambassador for Organ Donor Awareness, on the 50th anniversary of the first kidney transplant in Ireland, and to coincide with Organ Donor Awareness Week campaign, starting on March 29.

It’s an issue close to her heart. Good friends of hers, Martina and Denis Goggin from Spiddal lost their only child Eamonn, in a car crash in his 20s, and four people lived as a result of the gift of his organs. Another friend’s daughter Denise Ward from Louth received a transplant nine years ago and now is the mother of twin girls who celebrate their first birthday this month.

.@Tubridy2FM Organ donation works. To get your Organ Donor Card simply click here: http://t.co/FyjLCEPhUC pic.twitter.com/eSus50qVEM

— Irish Kidney Association (@IrishKidneyAs) March 10, 2014

Mary is full of praise for these women and of the inspiring women she encounters throughout Ireland as presenter of the magazine programme, Nationwide, describing them as “incredibly resourceful and, most of all, so warm, no matter what their age.”

More than a decade after her mother’s death at 87, and now at the age herself when her mother was widowed and left to rear four children, she is full of admiration for her resourcefulness and adaptability.

Mary, who got divorced from the father of her children, Ronan Foster in 2005, comments that it was tough and different for women of her mother’s generation. “She had to give up her job in the Civil Service when she got married. They were wonderful women, so unselfish. She had great moral fibre,” she says.

Be a hero! #organdonation pic.twitter.com/zv7alL9ZDU

— Irish Kidney Association (@IrishKidneyAs) March 18, 2014

While women back then found their own way of coping, Mary, in true 21st century style, goes for “gentle jogs to release the happy hormones” three times a week.

And takes every day as it comes.

nFree information factfiles, which accompany organ donor cards, are available from the Irish Kidney Association and nationwide from pharmacies, GP surgeries and Citizen Information Offices. It is also possible to store an organ donor cards on a Smart mobile phone. Visit website www.ika.ie.

Worth a peek

Prime Time: Love, Health, Sex, Fitness, Friendship, Spirit: Making the Most of All of Your Life. By Jane Fonda, €12.99

The title says it all and whether you’re an admirer or not of Jane Fonda — author, actress and workout pioneer — she certainly is gutsy.

This book was published in 2011, when she was 74, and remains an inspiration.

Silver surfer

Hard to keep track of your own and family’s medical history? Keep it all in one spot with the My Medical app

Unwind and relax

Throw in a few handfuls of Epsom salts under the running tap, and leave out the bubbly concoctions, next time you have a bath.

Irish people have been using it for generations to soothe aching muscles. It’s not actually a salt, but a naturally occurring, pure mineral compound of magnesium and sulphate.

Magnesium helps keep enzyme activity regular in your body.

Sulfate influences the formation of brain tissue and joint proteins, and can strengthen the walls of the digestive tract, according to the Epsom Salt Council.

“Age is an issue of mind over matter… if you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter” (Mark Twain)