Comedian Katherine Ryan on her Cork roots

With a father from Cork, it was inevitable that Irish influences would creep into the series about a single mother dealing with school-gate politics and renewed intentions for her ex

Katherine Ryan and Katy Byrne in The Duchess on Netflix. 

Katherine Ryan has warm memories of visiting her father’s home town of Cork. She recalls the natural beauty, the strong sense of history. 

It was very different from Sarnia, the petrochemical hub in southern Ontario, where she grew up. But what really stayed with her after one particular trip was the degree to which everyone, or so it appeared to her, was obsessed with Westlife and Boyzone.