Irene Feighan: Vicky Phelan was driven by fearless spirit when we worked on Feelgood guest edit
Vicky Phelan's favourite picture from the photo shoot for her guest edit of Feelgood for the Irish Examiner. Picture: Cathal Noonan
It started with a simple text. “Hi Vicky, I edit Feelgood, a weekly health and lifestyle supplement. Wondering if you are free tomorrow for a brief chat about a possible project? Many thanks.”
We spoke the following day over the phone about the possibility of her guest-editing an edition of Feelgood. She said yes and we arranged to meet on Friday, January 25, at 11.30am.
I pulled up outside her house in the outskirts of Limerick with about two minutes to spare. I checked my bag for the essentials — notebook, biro, phone — took a deep breath and approached the hall door. Though I’d prepared for the meeting, making notes of key dates and events, I was apprehensive. Here was a woman who from the time she first spoke to the media outside the High Court on April 25, 2018, had sent shockwaves through the medical system.
No, she would not take her €2.5m award and go home quietly to die. No, she would not accept that palliative care was her only treatment option. No, she would not stop campaigning for the rights of other women and their families who were affected by the CervicalCheck scandal.
I rang the bell but there was no reply. I could hear the hoover and guessed she couldn’t hear me. I waited and rang again. She opened the door, said hello, but looked tense. The new family pet — a bulldog called Alfie — had just wet the floor and she was cleaning up after him. She was a germaphobe, she told me. I appreciated her honesty — it set the tone for our meeting.
We sat in the sitting room — Alfie insisted on joining us — and started by going through the details of her case. It was difficult to hear how a false negative reading in 2011 missed early-stage cervical cancer. She was not diagnosed until 2014 and by then needed aggressive treatment. In September 2017, her consultant informed her that a CervicalCheck audit of her 2011 smear test suggested it had been misread.
Weeks later, following a CT scan, she was told she had inoperable cancer. The diagnosis was terminal.
Her story couldn’t be bleaker, but Vicky was determined to tell the bald truth. She had no time for small talk.
There was a lot of information to absorb. At one point I asked a question about her first diagnosis but got the year wrong. She paused, inhaled sharply and corrected me. I apologised. The moment passed quickly but it gave me an insight into her mindset: “This is important — get it right.”
We took a break for a cup of tea and biscuits in the kitchen. In true Irish style, we relaxed as we sipped from steaming mugs at the table. The conversation flowed, and we finally got to talk about the guest edition. But three hours had passed, and it was time for the school run. The trust established, we decide to continue via email.
There were a lot of decisions that needed to be made. Vicky was a natural editor, understanding the need to line up interviews, take pictures, commission copy, edit, proof, and sign off.
Then there was silence. I didn’t hear from her in over a week and was worried. An email landed. She’d been admitted to hospital. But she was upbeat — it was a viral infection and not a cancer-related setback.
Back on track, I tentatively asked about a photoshoot. Once again, she said yes. Brown Thomas Limerick took charge, quickly organising hair, makeup, and clothes. I arrived while Vicky was getting her makeup done in the store. I fussed and fretted all afternoon, her recent hospital visit on my mind. But somehow, she found a way to rise above it all and enjoy the shoot. She made sure to chat with everyone, thanking each person for their help. And perhaps because she believes in giving back, bought the beautiful shirt the stylist had picked for the shoot.
Photographer Cathal Noonan had already done a recce and had identified various locations in the city centre. Though it was February, the sun was as bright as a spotlight — we could have been on a film set. The first shot, featuring Vicky and her reflection in a window, was the clear winner. But Vicky’s favourite was the one taken at the end of the shoot when she returned to Brown Thomas. Job done, she sat down and smiled at the camera. She looked radiant.
She texted me when she returned home. “Thank you for such a lovely day today. After being stuck in bed for the last few weeks, it really was a treat today between the hair, makeup, and getting styled.”
We ploughed on with the supplement, discussing every article and page. She was determined to meet the deadline, even working on the train home from Dublin where she’d undergone treatment.
Her guest-edited edition was published on March 8, International Women’s Day. It featured a range of articles from the need to get a smear test and the HPV jab to learning ways to be intimate post cervical cancer treatment.
She was thrilled. “I feel like a proud mom,” she wrote. “I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity and the platform to discuss cervical cancer to help other women who may be out there and not getting the supports that they need and to raise awareness both about the disease and the importance of the HPV vaccine.”
I was proud too of what Feelgood and Vicky had produced together.
We kept in touch and arranged to meet in Limerick on June 21. I wanted to talk to her about other educational work we could do together around cervical cancer prevention.
She walked into the cafe with a broad, relaxed smile. She told me her symptoms had retreated and that she was feeling great. Over tea and waffles, we talked and talked and talked. She was energised by her political influence.
She spoke about the Taoiseach’s office being in touch, about her trust for Simon Harris, about the Scally Report, and about Stephen Teap and Lorraine Walsh who were on the cervical cancer steering committee. She had read almost everything written about her and was scathing of the journalists who didn’t support the women affected by the CervicalCheck scandal.
We discussed my idea for the next joint venture. She was keen but the summer holidays beckoned giving her precious time to spend with her children and was already started working on her book.
Her memoir Overcoming, which went on to win the An Post Irish Book Award, created a huge stir. In September, she emailed me from the train on her way up to The Late Late Show to talk about her book.
Though busy at home and with public commitments, Vicky continued to be supportive. She contributed to Feelgood’s 20th-anniversary edition in July 2020. In response to my request for her top health tip, she wrote: “I live in the moment because I don’t know how long I have left. Life is too short not to appreciate the simple things — a blue sky, birds singing, a hug from my children.”
At the start of 2021, we started to plan for an online International Women’s Day event. Vicky’s name was raised as a speaker and I offered to contact her, though I was hesitant as I knew she was about to start treatment in Maryland.
There was no response and I was not surprised. Then came an email in February. “I would be delighted to participate BUT it will all depend on how I am feeling at the time, something which I have no control over so it may well be that I will have to pull out at short notice.”
Once again, she found the energy to pull through.
We had a chat on the phone to discuss the interview. She was as clear and incisive as usual. I sent her the questions I was planning to ask. She replied with in-depth answers to each one. It was another insight: Vicky Phelan did not do things by half measure.
Our interview on the day went well — thanks to the preparation, it all flowed easily. When the recording was finished, she stayed on the video link to chat. She reminded me of the joint educational project we had discussed in 2019 and that she was interested in following up on it when she returned home from the States. She believed the experimental treatment would buy her time.
But by March 11 she was back in hospital. I sent a text to wish her well, adding that our write up on her latest Instagram video had got a huge response online. She replied:
Though Vicky fought fiercely to live, she knew she was being shadowed by a ‘black horse’ which has finally outrun her.
In Overcoming she wrote: “My ashes will be scattered in the water, on the silver sands of the beach at Doughmore. And I will become part of the sea once more. Part of the wild Atlantic Ocean … where only the white horses can catch me.”
May her fearless spirit run free with the white horses.
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