“I was great at hiding it!”
Maria Doyle Kennedy was the guest on this week’s Ireland Unfiltered with Dion Fanning.
Known for her musical and acting career, she shared some brilliant stories about herself, joining the Black Velvet Band and her views on sexism in the music industry.
It may seem crazy to think now, following such a distinguished career, that anything could faze her but she revealed what a daunting experience it was starting in Trinity College, but how she eventually came to terms with it.
You can see what she had to say on it below.
MDK: It was a little daunting certainly, I certainly was fearful at the beginning and felt alone or felt that I would be found out. Certainly most people seemed much more confident and to have people they knew and bonds and stuff like that. But of course years later you realise that, no, everybody was afraid and just some people are better at hiding it than others.
DF: And you weren’t good at hiding it?
MDK: I was great at hiding it! I was brilliant, yeah, nobody knew. People were actually really terrified of me – they told me afterwards – because I walked around in some big huge kind of bronze raincoat that I got in a secondhand shop, with a huge belt and a permanent don’t-talk-me-me scowl on, yeah. But it was total fear, you know, but anyway I did make friends.
DF: But if they did talk to you what would happen? You’d start talking about Plato?!
MDK: I would have been delighted of course if they talked to me! But I did make friends eventually, yeah you obviously just start, you find your place in a lecture don’t you, you’re either an ‘up-the-fronter’ or a ‘down-the’backer’ and you sort of find your crew and then I just discovered music and hanging out, it was brilliant.
You can watch the interview in full below.
Ireland Unfiltered, brought to you in partnership with Carlsberg Unfiltered, will be available everywhere you get your podcasts and on YouTube every Tuesday.
