Sinéad Kennedy: My life is busy and chaotic, I embrace every moment of it
Sinéad Kennedy at RTÉ Studios in Cork City. Picture: Chani Anderson
Sinéad Kennedy bursts into the bar in The Imperial Hotel. Bursts is the only term I can use; she’s a bundle of energy. She has 30 minutes to chat with me before she has to run back to the RTÉ Cork studios, where they broadcast the Today show.
“It’s all go,” she says. “I was running out the door for this interview and they were trying to get me into hair and makeup! Sure, it’s grand, I’ll get it done when we’re finished here.”
Organised chaos is how Kennedy describes her life. She’s live on the Today show on Mondays and Tuesdays, and the occasional Wednesday, with co-host and Irish Examiner agony uncle Daithí Ó Sé. At home during the week, she’s solo parenting her two young children — Indie, five, and Theo, two and a half. Her husband Conor works in Brussels with the European Defence Agency. He’s gone during the week, home at weekends.
“It is quite busy,” she admits (quite the understatement), “I have friends who look at me and are like, ‘how do you guys make it work?’ It’s not normal how I live. I’m very aware it’s not normal, the constant flying over and back is chaotic.” But right now, Kennedy wouldn’t change a thing. In fact, she says she “thrives on the chaos”.
Live TV is the buzz she loves. “We obviously book things months in advance but life happens too, and things can change at the drop of a hat, so everything is open to movement. It’s a lot of moving parts but the team here are so organised. I just bounce in and I’m like ‘what’s happening, where am I going?’ My work life has always been that kind of chaotic energy and I love it.”
With such a full-on life, the Ballincollig native says she lives for the summers when the Today show breaks for three months and her and her kids de-camp to Brussels.
“It’s the best switch off. Conor’s life doesn’t change too much in the sense that he’s still going to work every day, but when he comes home, we’re all there.”
For her daughter Indie, this precious time with her dad is invaluable.
“She’s mad about her dad, and she’s old enough now to be looking forward to the time we have together in the summer.”
For the mum-of-two, there are no bells and whistles to their summer plans; it’s just about having the family together for three months.
“To live that normal family life is so exciting for us. We’re so present. I just get to immerse myself in being a mom.” Kennedy’s face lights up as she describes the simple pleasures of seeing her kids playing in the back garden of their home in Brussels. “Sitting in the sun, watching them play in the sandpit in the back garden, it’s heaven. That’s all I need.”
In many ways, the summer acts as a reset for the busy TV host. Having that sustained period of time together as a family settles her, she says.
“You can’t pour from an empty cup, and once we’re all together in Brussels my cup runneth over. Throw in a bit of sun, and I’m happy out.”
Then September comes and Kennedy and her children return to Cork, and it’s back to the running around again. The 42-year-old is quick to say that this is no hardship. “It’s a great gig. The Today show is such a good fit for me.” Since she started on the show in September 2020, Kennedy has slotted in seamlessly. She enjoys a great on- and off-screen friendship with co-host Ó Sé, who she’s known since 2010.
“I was on the kids TV show S@ttitude at the time, and we’d all be together in makeup at the same time every day, Monday to Friday. when I was on Winning Streak, the odd time when Marty might be unavailable, Daithí would be called in, so we had presented together a few times.” The pair also co-presented a live New Year’s Eve show, and their chemistry was apparent to the powers that be in RTÉ. “When the Cork gig
became available, I think I was a natural fit there.” For live TV, trusting your co-host is essential, says Kennedy: “We know we have each other’s backs.” The pair enjoy “slagging” each other, but Kennedy says they know the intent behind the banter.
“We’re just having the craic. I’m never trying to undermine or minimise him; we’re not like that with one another. We know each other’s boundaries and limits.”
Kennedy is a natural at live TV work; she’s spent more than half her life doing it. She started work at RTÉ when she was just 19.
“I did kids TV for 10 years and I absolutely loved it. I learned so much. You do everything. You write your script, you book guests, you’re heading out at all hours of the day and night, because so and so might be in Dublin for X or Y, and next thing, you’re interviewing them on the red carpet. There was no set timetable. It was manic, all go, go, go.”
In 2013, she moved from kids TV “upstairs to entertainment” co-presenting Winning Streak with Marty Whelan. At the beginning, she says she was still in kids TV mode: “I must have been the loudest person on that floor!
“I was so used to the madness of young people and keeping that energy up all the time. It took a little while to get my head around the slower pace.”
Up until this point, Kennedy had been living in Dublin. “As a Corkonian, I went there a bit reluctantly at the start, but then I didn’t want to leave. I loved life there. You’ve got something every night, a new bar, a new restaurant that you haven’t tried, there’s something happening all the time. I loved the buzz of it.”
A change in Conor’s job saw the couple re-locate to Cork in 2018, though Kennedy still travelled up and down for Winning Streak. Eight years later, she can’t imagine moving back to Dublin. Being in Cork also means she’s close to her mother, who she calls her “lifeline”.
“Without her, I’d be in trouble. I’d be lost, because she’s incredible. Shout out to any parent doing it alone or without a support network. I don’t know how anybody does it, I’d be totally lost without that bit of help.”
As for free time... “I’m so exhausted at the end of the day that I can’t even take off my makeup,” she laughs. When the kids get a bit older, however, she has great plans — like taking up paddleboarding.
“I’ve great plans for the future, but right now, I switch off with a bit of TV in the evening.”
In person, there’s a naturalness to Kennedy that echoes her on-screen presence.
She loves her fashion, often styling herself for the show, and though she appreciates getting her hair and makeup done, this is far removed from her everyday look, “If I put on a lick of mascara between the end of May and the start of September, that’d be quite impressive.” Like every woman with young children, Kennedy says she’s last on her own priority list. “When you’re in the thick of it with two small kids, you’re last on your to do list.”
Right now her life is full, but Kennedy says she misses making documentaries.
While working on Winning Streak, the on-air host produced several award-winning documentaries including Age, Sex, Location on RTÉ Radio One, which focused on online predators, This is Me on RTÉ One, which documented the late Laura Brennan’s battle with cervical cancer, and The Crossing on RTÉ One, where she joined the crew of the Irish navy and witnessed the rescue of over 2,000 migrants.
“The kinds of documentaries I like to make are really immersive; I find I get lost in them. So I don’t think I’m in a position right now to go down that route, or to re-engage those creative juices, but once the kids start school, it’s something I’d like to get back into for sure.
“I just love making them, because you are the conduit through which people can tell their stories. And it’s such a privilege to be in a position to be able to work on those kinds of things and bring those stories to light.”
Her ambition is still there, she’s just got different priorities right now.
“Time goes by so fast. I blink and I miss something amazing that my kids have done. I want to soak it all in, to press pause on everything, because in no time at all we’ll be having a conversation about them leaving, going to college, to pastures new, whatever it is they choose to do. And I’d be like, ‘how did I just not embrace every minute of that’?”
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