Pauline McLynn: My proudest achievement is helping my dad get paid via signed Father Ted memorabilia

My mother says I was the first person in the family to get paid for showing off

Pauline McLynn: I'd like to be remembered as being harmless 

I was born in Sligo but my dad’s job moved to Galway when I was six months old. So, we got into the car — I wasn't driving at the time — and drove to Galway, and that’s where I grew up.

I have two younger brothers, Ian who still lives in Galway, and Philip who is London-based. My dad sold car parts for a living and he drove a van everywhere, so we got lots of great trips in the van. If you were out in the countryside, it was brilliant because the cab of the van was always higher than the hedgerows. So, if there were mushrooms or anything in the fields we'd know and we'd be able to go in collecting them. In the 70s we briefly had a car. That was no good, we couldn't see a thing.

When I started going to primary school, I had a very heavy Sligo accent so my mother sent me to elocution lessons — that was my first bit of performing. I did some plays in primary school. My mother was very good at making things and I remember doing a great version of the Nativity in school one year where I was the Archangel Gabriel and she made me a fabulous set of wings, a gown and a lovely tinsel halo that was on its own piece of wire, so it was above my head. It was like a painting. And then the following year I got the part of Snow White and she made me an identical costume to the one in the animated movie.

In secondary school, I had a really brilliant teacher, Sister Ailbhe. I think if she had grown up in a later generation she would have been a director and writer. She used to write plays in both English and Irish and we would perform them. When I went to Trinity, I joined the drama society in the first week, and that was that.

My mother always says it was no surprise to her that one of the family went into showbiz — she says I was just the first person in the family to get paid for showing off. Not regularly paid for it mind you...

Pauline McLynn. Photograph Moya Nolan

In many ways, luck was with me, in a skewed sort of way, when I left college. It was 1983, there was a huge recession and there were no jobs. There were no 'good', practical jobs. So you might as well have been working in the arts because it sort of made no difference to life to be acting in shows. In the beginning, a lot of the time I was in companies set up by the people I'd gone to college with and you didn't get paid unless the show did really well. We were just signing on and managing to get by.

I’m not great for introspection. I think that’s maybe why I wasn’t a great student. At Trinity, I studied history of art and modern English, but when it came to English, I'd read something and think 'oh I loved that' but then you had to dissect it. And once you put it back together again, I just thought 'the magic is gone now'.

I think the greatest gift I have is making people feel at ease. Life is stressful so it's nice to be able to meet people and put them at their ease and then get on with whatever it is you're trying to do on the day.

My proudest achievement involves Father Ted and my dad. My dad, who is dead 15 years now, used to sell parts of cars around the West of Ireland. And he loved Father Ted. Himself and my mum came to a few recordings of it in London. When Ted was a huge success, I used to get a load of signed photographs from the cast for him, and he’d bring them around and give them to fans in the accounts departments of various companies. And, he got paid quicker as a result — that’s my proudest achievement because I got to make his life a little bit easier.

Pauline McLynn as Mrs Doyle in Father Ted.

The person I turn to most for advice is... myself. I love a bit of gardening, and part of what I love about it is that I can have a chat with myself out there and work a few things out. Now it's often out loud. So my neighbours probably know more about me than a lot of other people...

The life lesson I’d like to pass on is be kind. There’s nothing that can top that.

The best advice I’ve ever been given was from my mother. She always used to say: 'Never grow up, it’s overrated'. That stuck. I don’t think I’ve gotten out of my 20s in my head.

What still surprises me in life is how, at our best, people are great. And we all try our hardest to make a difference. After living through two years of lockdown, I am kind of hoping that we're all looking at the world and trying to leave it at least no worse than we got it for the next generation. I'm glad I grew up when I did because the world now... It really is in a state. We're going to be handing it over [to the next generation] with less creatures living in the wild, so many species are going extinct on our watch. I feel terrible about that. I'm trying to do my bit for the environment and I am kind of hoping that we will all pull together to make a difference in that way.

I would like to be remembered as harmless. If I thought I’d done no harm, that would be wonderful.

Pauline McLynn is an actress, author and activist. She is also an ambassador for the Kellogg’s Skyline Tour at Croke Park, renamed following the brand’s 10-year long partnership with the GAA through their annual summer camps, Cúl Camps. See crokepark.ie/tours/skyline for more information.