I grew up in Dundrum in Dublin but my parents are both from the North, so I have a bit of a northern accent. I am the eldest of four so I have the strongest accent out of my siblings. My uncle lived with us from the aged of 12 after he was orphaned when my granny died at 53 from breast cancer. So I had three strong northern accents in the house growing up.
I always loved health, science, chemistry and maths, but I didn’t really like blood and guts, so that’s why I went into pharmacy. I now run an Instagram page called the Fabulous Pharmacist, where no questions are off limits and where women can get clear, honest answers without judgment.
When people ask, “Why are you doing this?” I often think about my granny. Knowing she worked so hard as a nurse’s aide and waitress while trying to raise children in a poor area in the North, and then dying at 53 riddled with breast cancer; that’s part of why I do what I do.
We have so much cancer research now. Breast cancer, when detected early, is really manageable. Women’s lives are saved. But my granny, unfortunately, was of an era where she wasn’t even checking her breast. The research just wasn’t there.
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In Ireland, we have grown up with this Catholic ethos where you can’t talk about sexual pleasure. You can’t talk about your vagina, your vulva, your testicles. I saw so many women in the pharmacy coming in deeply ashamed of their bodies, not able to say the words to explain their symptoms. It really pissed me off. That’s another reason why I do what I do.
I do live shows now, and a lot of older women come and say, “I wish I had known this 25, 30 years ago”. I had an 88-year-old woman at my Viva La Vulva show in Tralee with her five daughters and two granddaughters. She sat there the whole night with this big smile on her face. I went over at the end and asked, “How did you find that?” She had tears in her eyes and said, “I can’t believe that information is accessible to women now. My daughters will benefit from it. My granddaughters will benefit from it. I knew nothing about this. I knew nothing about what was going on with my body. I just thought I was broken. I thought I was the only person that had these issues.”
I started the The Fabulous Pharmacist page when I was breastfeeding on the couch 12 years ago. I didn’t have an opportunity to display my personality because it was only written form back then on Facebook. I’d put a picture of Canesten cream and write what it did to help with thrush.
It really took off when I discovered Instagram Stories, where you can talk directly to people. I started doing that, and then Covid hit. I started posting more and more videos online about all kinds of issues. People would say it blew up overnight, but there were 12 years before that of having 300 followers. It took 12 years to become an overnight success, plus all my learnings in pharmacy.
While Covid had a positive effect on my personal career, it had a negative effect on my children’s education. One of my children was going from primary school into secondary school, and that was hard.
I took my children to India over Christmas because I wanted to show them a different culture. Everything is different there, but in a lot of ways, Indian people are lovely and friendly like Irish people.
I wanted my children to see how life isn’t just about living in this country, that there are many other people in the world that don’t have it as good as they do. I wanted to show them Old Delhi, where people live out their lives in the street. There are cows walking around with people trying to sell all kinds of things, people on rickshaws with large stacks of bricks, and families riding a motorcycle, four people to one motorcycle, not a helmet between them. I hope it left an impression upon them.
Things have changed in Ireland. I think we are definitely more open in terms of our bodily autonomy and sexual wellness. But we need everyone to get up to speed with menopausal care so that any woman can go into any doctor and get the care she needs. That still doesn’t happen.
I am over and back to the UK now to promote my book Love Your Vulva. I actually think Irish women are a little bit more open to talking about things than the UK ladies I’ve dealt with. Then, that could be that the women who follow me or know me know exactly what’s going to come out of my mouth, and they’re not shocked, whereas maybe the UK ladies are like, “Oh, here’s a pharmacist, and she’s going to talk about vulvas. Oh my God, what did she just say?”
I’ve been very surprised, because I always thought that in the UK the sexual awareness was there. They had GUM (genitourinary medicine) clinics, which are STI clinics, and they had abortion long before we did.
I think what happened in Ireland is the shackles came off, and we went wild. It feels like we’re like, “Oh my God, we have had all this oppression for so many years. Let’s just go nuts.” It has definitely changed for the better, for women, for men, for everyone, which is wonderful.
I love being Irish. I’m so proud to be an Irish woman and I’ve such a love for other Irish women. Irish women have supported me from the get-go. They’ve supported my business. They’ve supported my stuff online. Irish women are just special, or certainly the ones I meet are.
In conversation with Niamh Browne. This interview is part of a series with well-known people about their lives and relationship with Ireland
Laura Dowling will perform Love Your Vulva Live at the National Concert Hall in Dublin on January 31st; tickets €75 at nch.ie
