 in your journey. But let's go back a bit. Let's go back to moving from Dublin. Why did you decide to move up and stay upstakes and move as lifestyle? I suppose it was really, John. You know, when you come from Donegal, I suppose perhaps there is that. Yeah, there's always a pullback. I think a lot of us have a compass setting that does sort of draw us north, you know. And yeah, I love my life in Dublin and my husband was also a journalist. And we were, you know, we were busy in our jobs, largely we'd been having a conversation for some years. Could we make a life in Donegal work? Could, is that possible? And we just, you know, we looked at it and we thought, well, how, you know, we work for national media, you know, it'd be very difficult, you know. And then time moved on. And we still kept having the conversation. In fact, it was the kind of conversation we used to have every Sunday before we'd sort of leave Donegal to go back to Dublin and we kind of go back as we'd walk the beach. Is a life here? Is it possible? Is it pipe dream? And then, you know, we felt you had to be in, just felt that you had to be in the capital. Yeah, I think, well, you know, working in national media, I think, you know, I worked, I was a newsjournalist for, you know, I've been a journalist for 30 years almost. But yeah, I worked for the Irish Independent. I was on the staff there for years and I worked for RTE. So it was hard to switch that off. You know, how to be otherwise, I just couldn't see how that was possible. You know, what would I do? What, you know, how could I make a living? But I think with the birth of our first child, we really started to look at our lives. You know, did we want to rare our children in the city? You know, my husband's from rural County Monahoney, lived on the Louth Monahun border outside Carrick Macross. And we really thought, you know, not just for us, but we wanted to rare our children somewhere else, far from the city. So both of you are from rural backgrounds? Yeah, very much so. Now you mentioned about a poll, you know, there's always a poll back to Donegal. But I think there's also a poll back to the country. If you're born in the country, there's a big party always just wants wants to go back there and especially once family comes along. Yeah, I think that's it, John, you know, and my husband, myself, we're both very, I think very different in personality, but our values are very similar. And I know that when when we would get stressed or life would get busy, there's definitely that poll to the outdoors to nature. That was very strong for both of us. That was something that we identified in one another very early on. So yeah, I think when our children came along, it was like the, you know, our days in the city were numbered at that point. Definitely. So other other things said, how has that move worked out? How long ago was that? That was 11 years ago. 11 years ago last month. So it's how has the work element, you know, was it as big a shock to the system as you thought it would be? Actually, you know, I had only worked in newsrooms, you know, so very busy big newsrooms. And, you know, when after I had my second child, I was on my maternity leave, and I was very happy to be to move back home and be on maternity leave. The day my maternity leave ended, I felt unmoored. I thought, what am I going to do now? Because, you know, for anyone who's spent any time on a newsroom, you know, it's a busy environment. And, you know, you never Yeah, you don't know what way, you know, your day is going to go. Some people might describe it as, you know, the rock assist, if you push push the rock to the top of the hill and watch it roll down. I quite like that work, you know, clean sheets start every day. So yeah, it was it was busy. So when I found myself, you know, sort of untethered from all of that, that that had given me so much identity over the years. Can't be all consuming. It can be all consuming. And the work of a journalist is all consuming. It's, it's, I don't think it's like other professions. It's, it's, you get involved in stories, you know, and they pull you into their, into their, into their remit. And, and, you know, I love the work. Yeah, I really much, if you ask me, what was I, before I would say anything else, human being, I would say journalist, you know, that's, it was every fiber of me, you know, so it was, it was difficult to put that aside and get on with the task of being a million put felt like a million miles away from the Daily Newsbeat and rearing two small boys, that's a busy job on itself, you know, so it was a very, it was, it was, it was, it was like chalk and cheese, you know, so in a way, something had to give something had to give, but you know, you know, over the course of those years, I mean, I'm, I'm quite busy and my boys are bigger now, you know, they're 14 and 11, they're not babies. And obviously, I've been very busy over the last course, course of the last year, right in a book, but I also, you know, I'm, you know, I went back to work, I work for the Irish Independent. I write features and news and, and, you know, a lot of Johnny Gaul is in the work that I do as well. So you didn't give up work and your husband didn't give up work in the morning? No, I, I, mine was a slow burn back to it, if you like, you know, definitely when the boys were smaller, you know, I was, I took on pieces sort of bit by bit. But my husband was lucky in that when we moved, he rejoined Independent Newspapers and Media House as a columnist. And the business show on, on Saturday on RT Radio One came along and Richard took that on nine years ago. And which is, you know, one of RT's top shows on Radio One now. So listeners would be very familiar to his voice every Saturday morning. So, you know, work evolved and changed for us, but technology made that possible. You know, that, that had we up sticks before we did, our move wouldn't have been possible. Also, it was sort of predicated on the fact that we lived along a main route, where we did when we moved with three megs of broadband. Not a lot, certainly not a lot for both of us to be online at the same time. If Richard was working, you know, there was no room for anything else. But then fiber to the home came along, which did revolutionize our working lives. So, you know, that change, it did come dropping slowly, but now it's, it's allowed us to do what we do, you know, in a more remote place and live a very different life. And then COVID came along and then everybody realized that, oh, you actually can do a whole pile of work from home. That the strange thing is, John, that, you know, you're doing all that pre COVID. We were, you know, this is the thing. It was almost like we weren't early, early innovators for this type of thing to leave and to try, you know, remote working in a rural place. And now people have seen with COVID, people have pushed the boundaries of their working lives more and more to see what is possible, what is feasible. And, you know, it's great to see people actually maybe, you know, hankering for a change of life. I mean, the city is, is, is packed to capacity. Housing is a problem. You know, so to think that people can change their lives that may be of huge benefit to them is amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's been seismic. Yeah. Now, your book deals with those issues, with the work, with moving, with love and also with loss because the stage you moved, you had two young boys, but you, you still wanted to have more in your family. It didn't go to class. It didn't. And I think, you know, John, that's the thing, you know, when you roll the pregnancy dice, you know, you don't know what way it's going to go. And we were, you know, we had two boys and we were blessed with with two, two healthy, healthy children. But I suppose the heart wants what it wants. And, you know, I was mad to have a third child, maybe not just a third, maybe a fourth, you know, we would have welcomed, you know, any children that we were that came along. But it just didn't, it just didn't pan out that way. And I suffered from, you know, recurrent miscarriage. And that was, it was an incredibly difficult, you know, few years in our lives. It was a bit of a roller coaster pregnant, not pregnant loss, you know, pregnant again, you know, and then, you know, the worry that comes with when you are, even though all you want to be is pregnant, the worry and constant anxiety because you've experienced loss, there's almost like, there's no such thing as relaxing into a pregnancy after a loss. It's just a very different thing. Now I had two textbook pregnancies. There were, it was like falling off a log. Naively, I thought, you know, this is going to be straightforward. And it wasn't. And it was really difficult and traumatic. And I do say this from the point of view as a woman who had, you know, two healthy children, my experiences of loss are nothing, you know, compared to someone who is, they're not nothing, but compared to someone who's had no children and experiencing, you know, recurrent miscarriage, wondering and hoping, is this ever going to happen for me? Then that's, that's an entirely different prospect. And, you know, I'm very aware of that. And I've spoken to women in my work. I've spoken to a lot of women who've experienced loss and all its, in all its forms. And you know, it's, it's a very, it's very tough. And, and a lot of times it's not talked about, you know, and I'm, I just decided when I started to write this book, that if I was going to talk about this, it had to be the words and all it had to be the sides of grief that, you know, we're not really supposed to show like anger, like absolute rage at the world in yourself. Like I had to lay all that out there. If this was going to be authentic. And I was going to deal with these things in a really open and honest way. I felt that it had to be really authentic. What sort of anger? It looks sort of why me type? Not, not so much why me, John, because look, you know, these things happen. I was angry at the world. I was angry when there was another pregnancy announcement. Social media became an absolutely hateful place because there are pregnancy announcements. Obviously, you know, I was angry at myself. Mostly most of that anger was, I think, you know, what led your body was letting you down? Yes. Yeah. And I think that's very that's something that a lot of women who've gotten in touch with me after, you know, because they are independent, published an extract from the book Finding My Wild just two weeks ago on the outpouring in terms of a response I've had from women just, you know, saying, you know, I've never seen it articulated so clearly the anger that you reserve, especially for yourself, because you feel so annoyed and heartbroken that this has happened. But, you know, anger is another side of grief. You know, it's there. It's like the other side of the coin. And for me, it was mainly aimed at myself. So to try to move beyond the anger and the sadness, you took to swimming and while swimming wasn't just going into a local pool. It was while swimming. I don't know what it was about the water. You know, John, I think the sea has featured, you know, in the stories of my childhood always. I mean, I couldn't live where I live without the sea being a massive influence. But yeah, I think I'd always wanted to be when we moved back to Nishon and water is everywhere, you know, we're a peninsula. I wanted the sea to become more of my life. I wanted it to be I wanted to become a better swimmer. I wanted it to be very much part of my the fabric of my day to day or week to week. Make the most of the most of what was as someone described free gym, you know, it's it's there. It's it's amazing. So yeah, I started. I started going to the scene. My husband had been sea swimming, you know, since before I met him. And I used to think this is a bit mad, you know, getting in in January and freezing temperatures. But, you know, I started going and dipping my toe in and then, you know, becoming a regular swimmer. And I found, you know, the comfort of the water. It was a place I suppose a lot of people found this during COVID when they couldn't do anything else that, you know, the sea gives you permission to be to be yourself. You can cry, you can swim, you can relax, you can, you know, I find it immensely comforting that the site of the vast blue Atlantic ocean, some people might think, oh, it looks like it could swallow you whole. But the vastness of it was a huge comfort to me that you are this little speck in the ocean and your troubles are just this little speck as well. And that, you know, when you watch one wave, wash in and wash out, all of a sudden, you know, that's just life. You just got to try and roll with it. And the more I watched the water and spent time in it and swam, you know, I came back to myself. So, you know, someone said, you know, the whole, the, the, the selfie legend in Donegal is strong. And my own metamorphosis was almost like that. Yes, I wasn't growing a tail fin and, and, and swimming off. But that metamorphosis within myself of coming back to myself, of feeling comfortable, of feeling whole again, after feeling like a failure. You know, so swimming allowed me to come back to that feeling of myself. And it brought me so many gifts. It brought me friendship. It brought me, you know, a social circle, woman I'd never met before. It allowed me to become a lot more open, I think, as a human being. And there have been so many gifts from the sea in my life. And I give thanks for it every day. And it all happened organically, I presume. Yeah, it did. I mean, it wasn't a force thing. It wasn't a force thing, John. I just, I found myself going there, walking the beach, you know, and then, you know, just dipping my toe. And I remember one day sitting at home and, and I was quite bereft. And I was sitting, listening to the, the cars going up and down the road and the ticking of the clock on the wall and thinking, you know, my boys were in school and thinking, you know, life is passing you by and you're stuck, you're stagnating here, you know. And I just got the keys to the car and I went to Kuldaf Beach. And lots of your listeners will be familiar with Kuldaf Beach. It's the most glorious expanse of blue Atlantic ocean. And I just that day, I felt a calling to just get in. And this sounds a bit mad, but I actually hopped out of the car, walked and through the clothes where they landed and walked into the ocean and my underwear and just said, you know what, I need to feel these waves for whatever reason. And it was the most free feeling that I that I'd ever experienced. And that day I made a promise to the ocean to go back and to, you know, to continue that relationship and that conversation. Keep going back, John. Yeah. So any day now that you get in for a swim is a good day? It is, you know what, even if the weather looks awful like today is a sort of a gray soup of a day, you know, it's not very interesting to do anything. But I started Monday morning in the ocean. I struggle with Mondays. I always have, you know, my parents used to say, I don't like Mondays was written for you because I really don't. But yeah, I started there with my husband and we get the kids to school and we go and we get into the sea. And no matter what kind of a day it is, the weather, it doesn't matter once you've been in the sea. It can be doing anything because once you've been in there and the elements, everything seems easier. It's like I've been in there. I've done that. Yes, I can do this day. For some people it might be the gym, others it might be, you know, getting out for a walk. But the way you've described the sea experience and the wild, the wild swim experience, it is, there is something unique about it. I think there is. And, you know, we're blessed in this part of the world where we live, that we have really beautiful, pristine, unpolluted waters where, you know, you can there's a there's a chance to do that well safely. I mean, obviously not every beach is safe to swim in, but it does offer an opportunity. And I think, you know, people talk about blue health. And there's a lot of literature on, you know, blue health these days and how, you know, being in near or on water, all of the health benefits, we know that it lowers our cortisol, we know it lowers our heart rate. You know, there are studies to show that when it induces a meditative state. In fact, our brainwaves are shown to take on the very fabric of the waves as we watch them. So we know in science that it's good for us. And sometimes our bodies just innately know that. So for me, it was a pull there. And I'm so grateful that my body responded to that knowledge deeply that held within ourselves. But our bodies also know that it's really, really cold. So you have to overcome that. And you have to overcome, I suppose, your fear of the cold. Yeah, I don't know, you know, for me, yeah, some days it's unpleasant. Everybody's different. Everybody's different. I always feel that some people's blood's thicker and they don't feel the cold as much. That's my excuse. Yeah, it's definitely a practice, John. You know, I don't know that if I hadn't been, you know, I think getting getting in at this time of year may not be the best thing. I think if you've been swimming from August, September, right through, it's definitely easier. Yeah, and there's lots of little tips and hints that you can get online about being safe, like warming up afterwards, not staying in for long, you know, wearing the gloves and the and the little things on your feet. If you're booties, if you're keeping your extremities and then heating up as quickly as possible, nice warm coat afterwards, hot drink, getting, you know, getting warm afterwards, not staying in there too long. There are lots of good tips online, Irish water, you know, Water Safety Ireland, great tips on there if you're unsure. But I don't know that it's this is the time of year to be doing it. If you haven't started, perhaps wait to the summer and then ease yourself gently in and, you know, find a friend, you know, it's a great social thing to find a body and go for a dip with. OK, well, all of the benefits are outlined in the book and much more besides, it's called Finding My Wild. It is out now. How a move to the edge brought me home. Kathy Donahue, thank you very much. Thanks so much, John.