Carole Coleman: I would like to be remembered as a chronicler of events of my time

This Much I Know: "I'm scared of right-wing ideology and where it could lead us. When you look back in history, how it was able to engulf certain parts of Europe..."

Sat, 11 Dec, 2021 - 06:00

Nicole Glennon

We're an Irish American combo in my family. I met my husband Larry towards the end of my four-year stint as RTÉ’s Washington Correspondent. We have two teenage girls, Irena and Lana, 15 and 13. We do everything together. We're very close. We love reading, music, cooking. We missed out a bit on the old sporting genes.

My earliest memory is walking to school hand in hand with a blonde-haired lad from the pub down the street. I'm not sure whether it's a real memory or I think I remember it because we have it on old camera roll from the time.

This boy lived down in the pub around the corner and he had a canary in a cage down in the house. And I would often go down after school to see the bird. We were about five or six. He was my first boyfriend and we walked to primary schools hand in hand.

When I was a young girl, I dreamed of doing musical theater. I'd done a couple of musicals in school and I just loved that. I knew I wanted to travel as well. Living in Leitrim, I was always looking out at the wider world beyond. I wanted to live in a hotel. That was a big thing. I didn't want to be doing any housework or cleaning! I envisioned myself living in a hotel in some exotic location.

The journalism has definitely brought me the travel and brought me a fair few hotel rooms and it's given me a stage to perform on. The only thing that's missing is the singing.

I've been a really lucky person. There has been no big career, health or wellbeing challenges in my life. I struggled to find the right balance between work and family life for a long time, throughout my 20s and 30s career was number one. My current part-time role as reporter and presenter on RTÉ’s This Week programme is perfect. I feel now I have achieved that balance.

My proudest achievement is my book News from under a Coat Stand. It's my diary of events between March and June 2020. I've done a couple of books before on American culture and politics with publishers but this one is my first self published work and the whole family pitched in.

It tells the news of the day that I was covering, but it also tells what was happening in my own town of Carrick-on-Shannon and my own family. My 15-year-old Irena drew the illustrations for the book. My husband was my fact-checker and my 13-year-old Lana is my social media manager and distribution helper. I'm really proud of it because it's completely homemade. We've had no help with it, we did the whole thing ourselves.

I would like to be remembered as a chronicler of events of my time. I have loads of broadcast reports, television and radio reports cataloged in libraries in RTÉ. And the two books on American politics and this one on the pandemic. Closer to home, by my family and friends, I'd like to be remembered as being a kind person.

I'm told that my greatest quality is kindness. I think kindness is probably the most powerful and useful currency that we have in the world today.

The person I turn to most is my mum Kathleen Coleman. She's both my biggest fan and biggest critic. She's a former teacher, businesswoman, and she was Leitrim County Council's first Chairwoman as well. When I go out to visit her, she always greets me with a pile of newspaper clippings that she has collected for me, things that she thinks I need to know. She has advice on everything from how to help the girls with their homework to what I should be covering to what colours look best on me. She's definitely my go-to person.

The lesson I would like to pass on is something my mum taught me, and I think her mum taught her too - never let the sun go down on an argument. It’s a great rule that I keep.

The greatest advice I've ever been given was to smile.. it was given to me by a former Director-General of RTÉ many moons ago. At the time, I thought he was crazy, because as a journalist, you're very often delivering bad news. I thought, why would I be smiling? But over the years, I have learned that a smile is a winner not only on television, but in all aspects of life.

The thing I am best at is making to-do lists and doggedly working through them until every task is ticked off, then making a new one.

What surprises me is the sheer number of people who can't get timely, dental and medical care in Ireland. We are supposed to be a wealthy country and yet there are people in pain who can't get timely care.

Climate change has definitely impacted my life. I was RTÉ's Environment Correspondent back in the late 90s, early 2000s. I was probably informed about the issues around climate change a lot earlier than most people because of that.

I do feel a bit overwhelmed by how big it all is and how quickly it all seems to be happening. Just before the lockdown in March 2020, I bought a hybrid car, which I love, but I do wish now that I went for the fully electric car. I suppose living in Leitrim and working across the country, range anxiety is real for me, because you never know where you're going to end up or whether you'd have a charger.

I am constantly emptying out the recycling bin and taking out the bits that don't belong and all that kind of stuff. I'd love to be able to say I'm never going to get on a plane again but I know that's not true.

I'm scared of right-wing ideology and where it could lead us. When you look back in history, how it was able to engulf certain parts of Europe... you just always hope that we've gone beyond that and we would never go back there again, but you just don't know looking at the way politics is going.

The best Christmas present I could get this year would be to see my 92-year-old mother in law who is in the States. We haven’t seen her since the pandemic. We would always go visit her a couple of times a year. I would love to be in the same place as her this Christmas.