How agreeable are you?
I’m actually fairly agreeable, to be honest. I’m pretty chilled. I’m not big on confrontation. I tend to chat things through with people.
What’s your middle name and what do you think of it?
Oh God, I hate it. My middle name is Ita. And when I was younger it involved lots of nicknames like Chiquita banana, Jacqui the biscuit, lots of those things. It consistently followed me around. It’s not a middle name you’d describe as being “blessed with”.
I was called after an auntie. It was just one of those names that was attached to you but you definitely would not have chosen for yourself.
Where is your favourite place in Ireland?
Probably Ballybunion in Kerry. It’s our happy place as a family. We’ve been going there for a number of years. We spend the summer down there usually, at least a month. It’s just very relaxed. We literally do very little. We just rent a house. Our cousins are down there with us. We walk the beach every day. There’s loads of surfing, loads of having the craic, and really happy memories are always in that place.
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Describe yourself in three words.
Energetic. Sporty. Driven.
When did you last get angry?
Depends on what you’re asking. I get angry at my children every day when they don’t listen to me. But it’d be rare that I’d fly off the handle. I don’t tend to get irate about things. I’m pretty chilled generally, so it takes a lot to really anger me. If I do, you’ll know about it.
I sometimes get angry at the news. Like when I see the politicians with the bike shed, the other day. I was like everybody else, pulling my hair out wondering how we can be spending this kind of money when we’re in the middle of a crisis. That’s the kind of thing that does tend to make me angry.
What have you lost that you would like to have back?
My brother (Jacqui’s brother, Seán, died in a road traffic accident in 2011, aged 25). Not to be too philosophical about it, but there isn’t a day that passes that I wouldn’t give anything to have him back in our lives.
I’m sure there’s plenty of other things you could say in a material sense, but really that’s the biggest hole in our lives.
What’s your strongest childhood memory?
Probably laughter. It’s not necessarily one specific place or thing, it was just a lot of family time. I grew up in a very happy household where we would have been outside a lot in our house in Australia. There was constantly barbecues, constantly people coming through the doors. Just a really happy environment.
Where do you come in your family’s birth order, and has this defined you?
Oh it has definitely defined me. I am the middle child. I think people would have always said my sister is quite sensible – she’s 15 months older than me. Seán was two years younger than me and much wilder. I was maybe a mix of the two of them but got away with a bit more because I was in the middle of that. I could test the waters on both sides. Seán would have been in trouble because he was doing something stupid. Tríona was so sensible that she was never in trouble. So, I could probably test the boundaries a little bit more and it definitely defined who I am.
What do you expect to happen when you die?
I don’t know. I have weird thoughts about this. I’m not very religious but I would like to think there’s something there that’s beyond where we are now. I’d like to think that Seán, in particular, is somewhere in a happy place and so that probably gives me solace, and I’d like to think that that’s where we’re all going but I don’t really know what that is or what it looks like.
I just, in my head, have this vision that there is somewhere that is an eternal happy place that we’re all going to end up.
When were you happiest?
Probably now. We’re at a really nice phase of life where we’ve got a good life set up for ourselves. Our kids are happy and healthy, thank God. We both professionally are doing well and in a place where we’re comfortable and happy. Our parents are happy and healthy. That makes a big difference that everybody’s in a good place.
Every year that passes, things change. We know how lucky we are right now, and I feel like 2024 has been, personally and professionally, a really good year.
Which actor would play you in a biopic about your life?
I’ve always loved Cameron Diaz. She’s good craic. She’s into sport and fitness and exercise and she’s got that blonde, Californian look about her. Not that she looks like me, or anything like that, but I could just see the vibe.
What’s your biggest career/personal regret?
I don’t really do career regrets because I think they work themselves out. I have had moments where I didn’t get the thing that I thought I was going to get but actually in reality it worked out in a better way for me in the end. So, I’m pretty at peace with that.
Personal regrets? Just the travelling thing. There’s still an itch that needs to be scratched there. I would like to see more of the world. I still haven’t done South America. There’s more of Asia I’d like to see and it’s very hard to take that time away now, given that we’re so busy in our jobs and our lives are so up the walls. That’s probably the one thing that does gnaw away at me a little bit.
Have you any psychological quirks?
I get anxiety in car parks. Major anxiety. I don’t know why. The idea of going up there, the driving around and around looking for spaces and then trying to reverse into them and get the kids out of the car without knocking into somebody else’s car.
That is probably the thing that gives me more anxiety than anything else, and it’s such a small, unnecessary thing.
