When Gráinne Seoige began working on her latest project, Meanapás: Meon Nua, a documentary for TG4 about the menopause, she found it difficult to even say the word. Like many of the women she talked to for the programme, speaking out about the experience felt in some way shameful.
Particularly, when you’re a woman in the media, where your looks are constantly being analysed, and how you’re standing up to the test of time,” she says.
She is comfortable talking about it now though, she adds, when we meet for a chat in Dublin’s Westbury Hotel. She’s only on a flying visit to the capital as these days home for Gráinne is Galway city, where she lives with husband Leon Jordaan, having moved back to Ireland from South Africa during the pandemic.
Mid-life, menopause and all that goes with it were subjects she’d been thinking a lot about when TG4 approached her with the idea for the documentary. It felt like the right thing to do.
“I was getting to that time of my life, and I was experiencing weird symptoms,” she says. “And I didn’t know what was going on with me. I started to get really bad, restless legs at night. Almost like ants running from the knees down in particular, and a burning sensation on my legs at night.”
She would wake every night at 3am “on the dot. Just awake. I’ve never experienced a hot flush in my life. And that is the problem I think, there’s a stereotypical two or three symptoms. What I realised when I started doing my own research, is that we know so little, there’s so little education and information around it.”
As a society, we spend a lot of time thinking about how best to educate young people in a caring, compassionate way about the changes they are going through. None of that applies to our approach to menopause, Gráinne points out, yet half the population goes through it – in silence. “You don’t even have to be told – everybody knows that you don’t talk about it.”
Gráinne has a wide circle of women who she’s close to, including her mother and her sister Síle, the broadcaster. She has lots of female friends. She has made a living out of talking, and yet still, no one in her life was talking about menopause.
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Gráinne and Síle both forged successful careers in broadcasting. Photo: Brian McEvoy
“That’s why I know myself it has to change. It was only through me being awake in the wee small hours of the morning, on the internet, going what the hell, why are my feet on fire? And why am I awake, almost like clockwork?”
It was during one of these middle-of-the-night vigils that Gráinne, now 48, finally emailed Dr Caoimhe Hartley of the Menopause Health Clinic. Getting the diagnosis was a massive relief, she says, leaning back in her chair. The realisation that she was not, as she puts it, “going mad”, was wonderful.
Now, when she tells women about her project, the response is unanimous; they all want to talk. They tell her that they felt invisible. “That you get to a certain point and it’s almost like you’re not there.”
Being invisible was not always possible for Gráinne. She has been in the public eye since the age of 21, when she landed a job as a newsreader at the newly launched TnaG (now TG4) in 1996. That was the start of nearly two decades of being constantly on our screens.
While success at such an early age brought many blessings, it hasn’t always been easy to grow older when you are so firmly in the public eye. And Gráinne was clearly unimpressed by the tone of some of the media attention she attracted.
“I remember when I was turning 40, a couple of newspapers got in touch with me and wanted to do a ‘Fab at 40’ interview and photoshoot with me,” she says now. “I think the subtext is almost ‘Fab at 90’. Almost like by turning 40, you become decrepit.”
You’re literally coming into the height of your power. When you get to a certain age, you see behind the curtain. And you see the rubbish that goes on in society
Gráinne jokes it seemed as though they were marvelling that she was still able to walk unaided, despite her advancing years. She turned every one of those interviews down. Agreeing to do them would have been to agree with the idea that in some way she was past it, when nothing could have been further from the truth.
Entering the decade of your 40s, she argues, is when you’re in your prime. “You’re literally coming into the height of your power. When you get to a certain age, you see behind the curtain. And you see the rubbish that goes on in society.”
Often the women she spoke to for the documentary were in that squeezed middle part of their lives, juggling teenagers, a full-on career, and older parents. Gráinne’s own timeline has run a little differently. Her son – of whom she is immensely proud – is now 29. She had him when she was just 20. I wonder how it affected her, to become a mother so young, at an age when “usually people are out having a good time?” she finishes for me, with a grin. Did it make her more determined, more focused? Was that what drove her on to such early success?
“You see, I don’t have anything to compare it to. Because that’s how I always was. That was my normality,” she says.
“Your world changes overnight, but that happens to you when you become a mother whether you’re 20, 30 or 40. Your focus is on this little human being that you’re completely responsible for, and you’re in love with.
“Because it’s a love like no other. It takes over your life and it makes your priorities laser sharp. It just happened to me younger than most of my friends. I actually think it was the best thing that ever happened to me, because it gave me a head start.”
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Gráinne and Síle Seoige growing up in Galway. Picture: RTE
She had amazing love, support and encouragement from her family, she adds. Growing up in Spiddal, spending childhood summers with her grandparents on the Aran Islands, Gráinne is the eldest of four siblings; she and Síle have two brothers. She clearly adores her parents Phil and Mairtín, who are now in their 70s.
“The support enabled me to not only have my lovely little boy, but also to be able to go for it in terms of finishing my education and beginning my career.”
She did an arts degree in college – English, sociology and politics – and always wanted to be a journalist. She was only out of college a year when TG4 launched. She remembers it now as a really exciting moment, particularly for the Irish-speaking community.
“I grew up ‘as Gaeilge’, so I know how much fun the language is. But I also know the horrible image around it, particularly at the time. And the idea was ‘no, we’re going to turn that on its head, we’re going to have youth and vitality in this station.’”
The pressure when they launched was immense; an extremely advanced technical system which on launch night had yet to give them an error-free rehearsal, and the weight of responsibility she felt on behalf of the Gaeltacht areas.
She was there two years when news began to circulate about the launch of a new independent station called TV3.
“I got called for an interview. I was told, look, we’ve been watching you for the last two years, we know you can do the job, we’ve just never heard you speak a word of English. We have no idea what your English is like,” Gráinne laughs, describing how she told them “OK, hand me a piece of paper. I read it,” she smiles. “And I got offered the job there and then.”
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TV3 presenters Alan Cantwell and Gráinne Seoige in 1998
She moved to Dublin, to become the launch anchor for TV3 news with Alan Cantwell, in September 1998, aged 24.
Next, she moved to front her third start-up, Sky News Ireland. It involved training in England, “to broadcast with what we called Mammy Sky. It was exhilarating. And I got offered full time over there.” But the timing wasn’t right. Her son was just about to start secondary school.
“I wanted my son to grow up in Ireland,” she says. “So I turned it down. And they came back about a year later.”
She turned them down again. Professionally that was hard, she says, but for her son, it was absolutely the right thing. So instead she went to RTÉ, where she made the move to light entertainment. She found making the switch no problem.
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Gráinne Seoige on the set of Sky News Ireland during the first night of transmission. Picture by Gerry Mooney
“But for the press. They had a problem with me leaving the box. So it was, like ‘oh she’s cold and she’s reserved’. I’m feckin’ not,” she says.
We agree none of this would be said to a man. “Correct. There are so many things that were written at the time that just would not make paper now. The stuff that was written about me. Really focusing on my face and my figure, not about what I was doing with my work at all.
“At the time, because it was the culture, you just get on with it. Literally talking about my face all the time, as if it didn’t really belong to me or something,” she says, looking upset. “Unashamed scrutiny of your form. When you’re just trying to get on with your job.”
Gráinne moved to South Africa with her second husband, Leon, when she was in her early 40s (her first marriage, to the sports journalist Stephen Cullinane, ended in 2010). The couple lived there for five years, only returning to Ireland during lockdown.
“We all go through times where we’re challenged, like the core of who you actually think you are,” she says now. “Your whole identity. And for me, moving to South Africa, it was one of the most freeing things I ever did, and also one of the most challenging.”
Being overseas gave Gráinne the freedom to reinvent herself without the weight of public expectation. And it was amazing, she adds. “I think I’d almost had enough by the time I went out.”
Enough of? “Just the constant criticism and attention. Remember, I’m 40 out there, but I’ve been in the public eye since I was 21. And if I had to write a percentage of what I felt was positive reviews of me, or negative, it would be…” she scrunches her nose and gazes out the window.
“I’ve had horrible things written about me over the years. And with no right of reply. But anyway. When I went out to South Africa, it was like,” she sighs happily, “I could actually breathe. And I loved that.”
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Grainne and Leon on their wedding day
She and Leon, who she met when she was 38, had done the long-distance thing for a good while, Dublin to Pretoria. They knew they wanted to be together.
“I just think we both had the same feeling at the same time. We knew.”
He had lived in Ireland for eight years when they met. She wasn’t looking to meet someone when they got talking one night when she was out with friends. “I was so busy, I was working in London at the time, with BBC1, and I was coming over and back. I wasn’t interested in a relationship.”
When they started dating, she would call him Rhett Butler, she smiles, “because his manners and his way of behaving around women is completely different to what I would have been used to. Particularly when I was single. I don’t like to go to pubs, because people get drunk, and then they become rude and come over and say all kinds of funny things.
“You’d go through this thing I would consider to be the verbal equivalent of pulling your pigtail.” She adopts a broad accent, mimicking what a man might say to her in a pub. “‘The lads are saying over there that you’re one of the… are you Síle?’ This kind of ridiculous, childish way. Whereas within minutes of meeting Leon, we were chatting, and he goes: ‘I know you’re on the TV, I just don’t know what you’re working on right now.’ So respectful, so straight, and then it was off the table as a thing.”
When she first moved, she was still flying home to present RTÉ show Crimecall with Philip Boucher-Hayes. When it came time for the next series, she turned it down.
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Gráinne Seoige and Philip Boucher Hayes presenting ‘Crimecall’. Photo: Kyran O’Brien
Was that a hard decision? “No. I loved Crimecall. I’m the daughter of a guard. I noticed for a couple of years the terms were getting worse. You see it’s very much bound into this thing of how you’re valued.
“And I felt like the appreciation of what I did, or the value that was being put on what I brought to the table, there was less of a return coming every year the contract came up for renewal. And it came to a point where I went, ‘OK now, I’m not willing to do this job for that’.
“For your own self-respect, there comes a point where you have to go, ‘no, I’m not doing it for that’. And, the fact that you’re offering it, hmm,” she shakes her head. “Not nice. I don’t see myself how you’re saying that you see me. Because what you get paid for a job is the value that’s put on your work. So I said no.
“And it was the right thing to do. I felt great after I did it. Because if you continue to accept less and less and less for what you do, it’s not a good place, it’s not a good feeling to have.”
Then she could go for it, setting up her jewellery business, Grace Diamonds, a company she founded with Leon, which offers bespoke designs. That was scary, she laughs, but fun, too. Setting it up away from home was freeing “because it was like I’m not being judged here, I’m actually being supported, and encouraged.”
Gráinne and Leon got married in December 2019, three weeks after his father passed away. With both his parents gone, Leon suggested the couple return home to be closer to Gráinne’s family.
“I remember Leon turning to me and saying, look, I’ve a photograph of my parents at the ceremony, and your parents were sitting there, and you’re on the other side of the world. This is precious time. You should be at home with your family. I went, ‘you’re feckin right.’ I hadn’t thought about it, but he was absolutely right.”
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TV Presenter Gráinne Seoige and John Nolan during the Dancing with the Stars live show. Photo: Kyran O’Brien
They moved during lockdown, and rented a house in Galway. She was delighted to be back. “Psychologically, it just felt better.” She and Leon are settled now in Galway city. There has been a bit of TV, covering on Ireland AM and The Six O’Clock Show on Virgin Media, and appearing on Dancing with the Stars. She’s enjoying it.
“I love live television. I get endorphins off being on television. I get such a buzz.”
Going forward, will there be more TV work? “Who knows. I’m just delighted to have made this documentary.”
Why does she think it feels like there is a sea change in how we talk about the menopause in the last few years?
“A certain generation of women have come to a point where they’re going, OK, we’ve dealt with fertility, and controlling it. We have dealt with being able to take control of ending our relationship on a legal level. We have education, we have our own money. But now all of a sudden, our generation of women are coming to this place where it’s like, OK, I’ve been able to take the pill, or whatever I wanted to do for the last 25 years. If I needed IVF I could go and do it. But now you come to this point, and it’s like a dark hole, nothing here. Eh, why?
“A few of us have come to that point and gone, oh right, this is bullshit. We are supposed to now crawl into a box?
“And you know, drag the lid of the box down on ourselves and say OK, we’re signing out now? No,” she says firmly, and then laughs. Not on her watch.
‘Meanapás: Meon Nua’ will air on TG4 at 9.30pm on November 2
