Saturday with The Chase's Darragh Ennis: I wanted a back door for my house — it snowballed from there
Dr Darragh Ennis
I get up around 7.30 or so. My daughter plays soccer in Oxfordshire.
I’m on the GAA committee, I do fundraisers and I used to play really badly. I asked her if she wanted to join but the youth system is fairly small here and she has lots of friends from school who play on the soccer team.
We have a little boy who’s five who just wants to watch YouTube on a Saturday morning. We keep asking if he wants to play soccer or karate but he has no interest.
Once he turns six we’re going to poke him with a stick and make him do something.
I don’t eat breakfast. I can’t do salads and low calorie things so the only way I can control my weight is with intermittent fasting.
I don’t eat until lunchtime and I stop eating at six.
We’ll come home and I’ll start cooking — probably something like quesadillas. I love Italian and Mexican food and I bake bread including homemade pita bread.
My wife Joan makes a brilliant soda bread. We met in Maynooth when we were studying. We set up the surf club and were really good friends. We’re together 16 years now, married for 12.
The job on The Chase literally fell into my lap.
I wasn’t doing any of the things that people normally do when they want to be on TV — I just wanted a back door for my house and it snowballed from there.
I miss the day-to-day of academia. The facilities and the budgets absolutely dwarfed anything I did in Ireland to the point of being ludicrous.
We had brilliant opportunities to do great stuff, and I miss that, but I don’t miss the grind.
One thing people don’t get about science is that a large amount of it is trying stuff that doesn’t work.
You have to be quite resilient and to know when to cut your losses. But when we found something, or when something interesting happened, it was just such a great feeling.
Saturday afternoon will be spent at home playing board games or computer games.
We might go to Oxford. There are great museums here. We’ll take the dog for a walk, usually to one of the forest parks.
We usually cook on a Saturday night though we might get a takeaway if we’re feeling lazy.
After dinner we’ll watch a movie until 7pm and then it’s time to call my mam.
When we were living in Canada, before we had kids, we would call a couple of times a week but when my dad got sick with dementia I was keen that my children would know him and that he would know them. We got into the habit of calling every day.
My dad passed away last summer. Everybody reacts differently and some people need to get some help – me included.
I had an idea in my head that I’d be fine and strong and would bounce through it and it turned out that I was lying to myself.
I thought after a few weeks I’d be ok and I really wasn’t. People think that it softens after a while, and it becomes a sad memory, but it’s a gap in your life that never gets filled.
Saturday nights are almost always spent at home. My job sometimes takes us out — there are awards shows — which I quite like.
The red carpet is a very bizarre thing. The first time we went to an awards show there was a 100-metre-long red carpet with people screaming. It was really off-putting but now I’m used to it.
Sometimes people hire me for an event or I host a quiz for charity. I’ll do online quiz events to keep me sharp. I love watching University Challenge and Only Connect.
I’m currently reading a Mary Beard book about the emperors of Rome. I read fiction for fun, and nonfiction, or a bit of both.
If I come across things that I think are likely quiz topics I’ll put them in a flash card app on my phone. I have a few hundred sets, so when I’m waiting for a bus, I’ll look at those.
I was the annoying person in school who would stroll into an exam with just a pencil behind their ear and come out with good marks.
I was very lazy and unmotivated in school but I kind of breezed through.
Once I got to university it became a lot more challenging so I would put in very long hours and I still do.
Even as I’m talking to you I’m looking at two screens — one with the periodic table and one with past Booker prize winners.
- Darragh Ennis is an Irish entomologist, neuroscientist, professional quizzer and TV personality best known for his role of Chaser on The Chase.
- He hosts the podcast ‘A Normal Meets A Nerd’ and is an ambassador for the bereavement charity AtaLoss.
- He will appear on RTÉ One’s High Road Low Road this Tuesday at 7pm.
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