I was in UCD doing arts and was kind of floating through my first year, not really enjoying it. I started writing to the independent TV production companies around Dublin, saying, “I will work for nothing. I just want to get under the bonnet of TV.”
One of the production companies I ended up working for was Coco Television, and one of the shows they did was About the House with Duncan Stewart. It was my first time seeing a TV presenter in action. I got the bug.
I started on No Frontiers when I was 21, and finished at 31. To experience all of that travel, all of the different cultures and countries and religions, it was the best education I could ever have had.
I was sharing a flat in Rathmines with five other girls. I’d come home and everyone would be eating Pot Noodles and heading off to Night Owls in Ranelagh, and I would be off to Papua New Guinea, or South America or China.
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There wasn’t one part of it that I didn’t enjoy. No Frontiers was the best time of my life.
Halfway through my No Frontiers career, I was put on an RTÉ contract. No Frontiers ran into Operation Transformation [the reality weight-loss show]. It was of a different time. We were bringing people out in shorts, putting people on weighing scales. I did the show for 14 years.
I’ve become much better at saying no when I have my downtime
When it started to receive criticism, we changed the show. We looked at where society was. We looked at: what are the barometers of health? Being a healthy weight is one barometer. But what else does that include?
This was at a time when social media was ramping up in Ireland. We now have more access to information, but there’s a lot of disinformation.
I often think, would I have had the career that I did have, if I had started when social media was building in the way that it has? I don’t believe I would. I was a 21-year-old girl going around the world on television for half a million people every week, in a bikini for a large part, and not having to deal with the toxic scrutiny that happens today.
Towards the end, they had these online forums. I remember looking up something about No Frontiers. That’s where I saw, for the first time, horrific negative criticism about my physical appearance. Very quickly I went, “I am not going there”. I came off Twitter 10 years ago.
Life is not linear, and there are going to be things that come along and kick you in the arse. It’s not about whether hard things will happen, but how we handle it. As a freelancer, you never know when the show is going to be axed or commissioned.
People have given me brilliant opportunities, and I’ve taken those opportunities as they’ve come. But I also wanted security the older I got, so that’s why I started my business Pure Results. We run fitness and wellness retreats in Ireland and abroad. I set that up 11 years ago. We’re still going strong.
When I took on the Q102 radio show last year, it was a big decision because my girls are young, and one of my favourite parts of the day was walking my kids to school through the War Memorial Gardens in Dublin 8.
I had built up great flying hours in RTÉ Radio 1. But in terms of getting an opportunity where you have your own name over the door, the lure was too good. I sat in with Kevin Bakhurst. I said, “This is what I want to do”. I still have a great relationship with RTÉ – my TV work for now is in RTÉ – and I have a great relationship with my new family in Q102.
What time does the alarm go? Twenty-five to six, and I’m at my desk at six o’clock in the station. It has been an adjustment. There are a lot of balls in the air: the new podcast [called Are We There Yet], working on producing a new documentary, and running my business.
I’ve become much better at saying no when I have my downtime. Friday evenings are non-negotiable. Saturday morning is swimming with the kids; Thursday to gymnastics.
My girls are in the Gaelscoil. It was important for me seven years ago to make the decision to send my girls to an Irish-speaking school. I started Irish lessons three months ago; my Irish would have been ceart go leor. I did honours Irish for the Leaving Cert. I do the obair bhaile with my kids. It’s amazing how much is in there, but it’s just the projection of getting it out of the gob.
Can I Irish dance? Very badly, but I’ll always give it a lash. I was there when Riverdance debuted in the RDS on the opening night. All my family from Kerry came up and my uncle Tadgh, I’ll never forget it.
He’s a huge man with these giant hands, and he was just sitting there with his big hands on his face, bawling crying. It was an image I’ll never forget.
In conversation with Nadine O’Regan. Kathryn Thomas’s new podcast, Are We There Yet?, is available now on podcast platforms and YouTube. Listen to her radio show on Dublin’s Q102 weekdays from 7am.
