Ailbhe Reddy: ‘I'm pretty blessed but coming out wasn't that easy’

Ailbhe Reddy: new album 'Endless Affair' is out now.

WHEN I was in my late teens, I thought I was going to be a teacher so I don’t think I was born to be the person I am.

You can meet someone and they’ll completely change the course of your life but I don’t think that’s because of fate. It’s mostly chance and hard work.

I’m pretty blessed but coming out wasn’t that easy. I mean, my family was really good about it. I think it’s a hard thing to do. I struggled with it for years.

I didn’t come out until I was 22. It took me a while — I was wrestling with it as an idea. I grew up in the ’90s and early ’00s where lesbians were not represented in pop culture. There was Ellen DeGeneres and that was it. Things are so much better now.

Putting out my first album took time, investment, big decisions — and a lot of saving up money. I ended up doing it during the pandemic and had a lot of disappointments along the way like a label and tours falling through. I persevered and it did reasonably well so I’m pretty proud of that.

I’m quite calm and loyal. I wasn’t always but I don’t rise to arguments and I’m an easy person to talk to. When other people are losing their heads, I generally can remain quiet. I can deal with stressful situations quite well.

I became like that through therapy, I guess. And life experience. Being angry isn’t going to get me anywhere — it rarely brings you to a place of understanding with the other person. Being calm, forthright, honest and maybe even a bit vulnerable might be harder to do in the moment, but it’s the best way to deal with it in the long term.

I always turn to my best friend Amy — and my mum. Amy’s been my best friend since I was in school. Love of my life, you know! My mum’s quite good at dealing with things. She was probably more calm when I came out than I was. I did it in a very unceremonious way, I kind of just flung the information at her. I gave her a bit of a fright but she was mostly just worried about how upset I was.

The one life lesson I usually say is, ‘comparison is the thief of joy’. It’s especially good if you work in the arts. You’re never going to be happy if you’re constantly comparing yourself to other people. In this era of social media, it’s so easy to concentrate on what you don’t have and what other people do have. That’s only going to make you miserable.

Ailbhe Reddy: "The older you get, the more you have to renegotiate what success is for you."

You could be incredibly commercially successful and not happy with what you’re doing. It’s so easy to have a one-track vision. The older you get, the more you have to renegotiate what success is for you. Success to some people is playing arenas, to other people, it’s writing a few songs or touring and recording in a studio. To other people, it’s being a great parent.

I’d like to be remembered as funny and kind.

I wish I had taken the chance getting into music sooner — a chance on myself. I was cripplingly shy as a teenager, so I never did any gigs until I was 22. When I did finally start getting the experience, I felt like I was behind a lot of my contemporaries.

We went through a pretty intense heatwave in London during the summer. It was 40 degrees all summer. I feel a bit more guilty and conscious of not taking flights or traveling unnecessarily.

My greatest skill is encouraging people to communicate better. It’s probably a bit annoying that I’m always bringing that skill set into friendships. I think I’m a pretty decent songwriter.

I’m always surprised when I hear a new song that I haven’t heard before. There’s a finite amount of notes and people are still making new sh*t with that.

I’m not really that scared of things. I wouldn’t like to be attacked or murdered. Honestly, it’s pretty grim but those are my greatest fears.

I think it’s like that for most women. I’ll never be 100% comfortable walking at night. I live on the high street. I did that by design; I really like hearing people at all times and the cars go by on the street.

In the beginning of December in London, there was loads of snow. It started at 8 o’clock and went on until two. I’d have loved to go for a walk — this was about 11 and the sky was lit up all purple — the moonlight looked stunning. My housemate is a lovely chap and he told me the next morning that he’d gone for a walk in the park at midnight. I would love to be able to do that.

Sometimes with the internet we’re more aware of what other people are thinking and saying at all times. To think that people don’t do what they want to do with their careers because they’re worried about some d**khead online is so grim.

For a while, I was going to be a secondary school teacher which I think would be a lovely job. I went to college and did Irish and history but I realised all I wanted to be doing was music. I went back to college and did a psychotherapy degree. If I took a different fork in the road, maybe I would have stuck with either of those things. But music is the one I chose and it’s also very fulfilling and worthwhile.

• Ailbhe Reddy’s album Endless Affair is out now. She plays two nights at Whelan’s in Dublin on May 5 and 6.