It’s been a year of astonishing highs and devastating lows for Charlene McKenna, but you’d never guess it as she relaxes in front of the camera for our photo shoot. A joke here, an effortless outfit change there; it helps that she’s indulging in the world of fashion. “I love me some clothes,” as she puts it when we sit down for a chat afterwards.
“My mother said I’ve been like this my whole life. When I was about three and she was dressing me, she’d turn around for a minute, and I would have pulled out everything in the wardrobe and put on a whole new ensemble.”
McKenna’s three-year-old self would be proud that she now counts Simone Rocha as a friend and, along with those of other Irish designers, she models Rocha’s clothes. “I keep thinking Simone’s stuff can’t get better but she keeps outdoing herself every season,” she says.
On reflection, she adds: “Almost everything I wore was Irish. It’s not because they’re Irish – that’s just a bonus. Obviously, the Chanels and the Pradas and the Miu Mius are beautiful too but with Irish brands the quality is excellent and the designs are beautiful, and I’ve always been an advocate of shopping local, so it’s a win-win.”
The backdrop for the shoot is Castle Leslie, a place close to McKenna’s heart, and not only because it’s where she married Ripper Street costar Adam Rothenberg in 2021; it’s also near her childhood home in the village of Glaslough, Co Monaghan, where her family own a pub. As a girl, she used to play in Castle Leslie.
“I love it because it’s not too royal-y castle-y,” she says with endearing flourishes. “It’s more bohemian. Mick Jagger used to come here, Paul McCartney got married there. It’s the first time I’ve been back since getting married and it’s interesting to go from coming here as a child, then as a wife, and now, having had a baby. It takes you back to where you were but also you can see how your life has moved on.”
New parents McKenna and her husband now live full time in Monaghan, having previously split their time between London and New York, in addition to wherever filming took them. McKenna, who rose to fame in Ripper Street, spent time in Britain for Peaky Blinders and procedural drama Bloodlands, while crime drama Vienna Blood took her to Austria. Rothenberg, meanwhile, pitched up in Georgia, in the United States, to film Ozark, then Canada, for the filming of Lockerbie for Neflix and BBC. He is also among the cast of the Jilli Cooper romp Rivals, which is streaming on Disney +.
While McKenna still has “a bit of a Carrie Bradshaw dreamer left in me”, having their first child, Martha, in April helped her feel more rooted to her hometown.
“My nieces and nephews are further away, whereas we’re so close to where we grew up,” says McKenna. “Being here feels meaningful and beautiful to me but it’s also surreal. Now it’s like, is she going to go to my primary school?”
Sensitive to people’s different pregnancy journeys, she explains that Martha was “hard won”. After two rounds of failed IVF treatment, McKenna became pregnant almost immediately after, adding to a sense of “complete shock”.
“I was fighting for it for so many years, so I was very anxious during pregnancy, obviously. I was like, ‘Keep it going; please don’t go away’,” she recalls. “It was a very nerve-racking time but we’re both here, thank God. I’m loving it, but it’s hella hard. How they did five, six or eight back in the day, I don’t know.”
They say life gives with one hand and takes away with the other. Soon after Martha was born, McKenna’s father died suddenly.
“Within three weeks, I turned 40, had a baby and lost my father,” McKenna says, with a disarming matter-of-factness. “People talk about these rites of passage individually. They all have their own chapters in everyone’s book of life, and for me they collided catastrophically.
“I’m six-and-a-half months into motherhood and grief. I will never know one without the other, because I am a first-time mammy, and it’s my first time losing anyone that close to me. Sometimes I don’t know whether the anxiety I’m feeling is motherhood. I don’t know if it’s post-partum. I don’t know if it’s grief. I can’t know.
“I just have to accept that this is what happened. I’m trying to be tender with digesting it and I’m trying to do my best with both of them, and make sure I take some time. I’ve often felt that my grieving time was scheduled, like, ‘Oh the baby’s asleep. I’ll grieve now for an hour’. Babies, in a good way, keep you so present. You’re brought right back into the room. Yet a thing as epic as grief can’t be ignored because it will come back. And I don’t want to be suffering blind panic attacks in two years when my body decides it can grieve.”
It means this Christmas is going to be “incredibly bittersweet” as McKenna and her family – including five older brothers and their families – celebrate and commiserate their way through this reflective time. The reality of the season is why she shares her story so openly – she’s aware that “the joy of Christmas takes care of itself but there’s a lot of people who experience grief too, or difficulties with motherhood or getting pregnant”.
A new year can mean a new chapter. While readers may recognise her from RTÉ thriller Clean Sweep, which premiered strongly on Irish Netflix recently, McKenna returns to professional life in acclaimed Troubles-set play The Ferryman at The Gaiety Theatre in January. Inspired by the family history of playwright Jez Butterworth’s partner, actress Laura Donnelly, in Co Armagh, the story follows the Carneys, whose harvest festivities are interrupted when the body of family member and former IRA man Seamus is discovered in a nearby bog. From there it’s “a shattering feast of intricate storytelling” as the Evening Standard put it when it was first staged in London. Since then The Ferryman has won multiple awards, including two Olivier Awards and four Tony Awards from its Broadway transfer.
Now it is being revived for the Irish stage, with Andrew Flynn directing and Alex Murphy (The Young Offenders), Laurence Kinlan (Love/Hate) among the cast. McKenna plays Caitlin Carney, the role Donnelly played when the The Ferryman premiered. But don’t expect a carbon copy. “I couldn’t do it how Laura did it, and I wouldn’t want to,” says McKenna. “I could never have the affinity that she has to literally, her story. I’d want to stand alone, using my experiences of growing up near the border. It’s a world I know so well.”
For McKenna, treading the boards is an apt return to her profession; it flexes her acting muscles, while allowing for a routine that might be needed as a new mother. It’s also a fitting tribute to her father, she explains.
“When Daddy died, my husband’s manager sent me a beautiful message about grief and he said look out for ‘God winks’, little things you can attribute meaning to, like white feathers,” she said. “The Ferryman has circled me a few times and I often wondered what Daddy would think of it because it’s set minutes from where we lived. It takes place on a farm, there’s lots of boys in the family – there are many similarities. So to me, it’s strange that I’d never ended up in it, yet it’s suddenly happened out of the blue. I like to think that’s a little God wink.”
The Ferryman runs at The Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, from January 27th to March 8th. See gaietytheatre.ie
Hair and make up: Leonard Daly. Styling: Megan Fox. Photographs: Emily Quinn. Shot on location at Castle Leslie Estate, Co Monaghan
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