Mary Kennedy & Deirdre Ní Chinnéide: time to return to our roots

The RTÉ personality and her sister tell Rowena Walsh that in times of trauma, we turn towards our Celtic traditions

Mary Kennedy and Deirdre Ní Chinnéide: tapping into memory and tradition in their new book

For Mary Kennedy and her sister Deirdre Ní Chinnéide, their new book Journey to the Well is very much a labour of love. It certainly was a labour for Kennedy. The former Nationwide presenter is candid that she found it very difficult to start working on the project, which was conceived early in 2021, in the midst of the country’s third lockdown.

“I found the third lockdown very, very difficult,” says Kennedy, “I enjoyed the first one, the second one was okay, I suppose, because we were coming towards Christmas. Then, after Christmas, it’s a pretty grim time of the year anyway. I found it difficult to actually get going on it and Deirdre was very helpful.”