Four Late Late Show taking points, including Marian Keyes and Jordan Conroy
Marian Keyes on the Late Late Show
Patrick Kielty was joined by his almost-namesake Paddy McGuinness and the Top Gear host shared some details he discovered about his family history on a recent visit to Ireland.
McGuinness said his father always told him their family hailed from Munster, but research undertaken for a new show found links to another province altogether.
“My dad, God rest his soul, told me his side of the family were from Tipperary — sorry to let you know, they weren't,” he told a cheering Tipperary corner of the studio audience.
“We’re from Ballina,” he clarified, “so I was out here. just had an absolutely blimey time, everyone in Ballina looked after me.” He said he was thrilled to find records of his father’s side of the family, particularly as records of his mother’s side — also Irish — were lost.
Bestselling author Marian Keyes joined the Late Late lineup to discuss her latest novel, My Favourite Mistake, and speak about regrets and being ‘invisible’.
Keyes said she feels “really lucky” to be a successful writer and said her latest book is a “love story in a beautiful place between middle-aged people”.
She said much of it was inspired by the regrets she felt as she got older about some choices in her life.
“It's just part of getting older, realizing that I've done things that I'm not really going to be able to fix and what am I going to do with those feelings? It's been a journey of trying to fix the small things that I could, and then realizing that I'm a human being, and I am deeply flawed, and I'm slightly less flawed now than I was back then.”
She added: “I found huge balm in writing this because I'm not a bad person but I did things that I really am not proud of.”
Keyes also described the pressure society puts on women to meet a strict beauty standard. “There is a very narrow rigid template that women are supposed to fit into to be the right kind of woman,” she said.
Cork singer Lyra performed a song from her new album and spoke about pursuing a career in music while maintaining her own identity. She said she was advised to change many aspects of her voice, body and personality to be commercially successful and ultimately rejected the suggestions.
“I was miserable. I was the size of a microphone, I'd say and I had no energy in me. So I was like, ‘This is it now. I'm going to put these thigh-high boots on, I’m taking the long road. I’m going to have a good old bacon sandwich and I’m going to go hell for leather.’ And you know what, I'm so much happier and I've written so much better material.”
Speaking about her album, ‘Lyra’, the singer said there are some new songs that she makes her father skip. Keyes said she could empathise after her father read a sex scene she had written.
“My dad read my first book, there's one sex scene in it. And for the following six months, we couldn't make eye contact, it was horrific.”
Finally, Kielty was joined by rugby player Jordan Conroy who spoke about his difficult childhood and the domestic abuse he witnessed and suffered at the hands of his stepdad in Germany.
Conroy said he is sharing his experience of overcoming childhood trauma to help children in similar positions.
“At a very young age, it was very tough to see your mom being beaten down by a man and you're supposed to be the man of the house and trying to protect her,” he reflected.
He encouraged men and boys to confront their own emotions and not bury any feelings.
“I just want to show young men out there and even men my age that it's okay to be scared. It's okay to let these emotions out.”
