Watching the weather with Joanna Donnelly

When meteorologist Joanna Donnelly made her television debut on RTÉ in March, she was an instant hit with audiences.

Her down-to-earth style (and the occasional pop-culture references) have set her apart from other presenters, with some likening her to a teacher.

“I’ve heard that a few times. I should really stop that, though, because I’m supposed to be presenting and not teaching,” she says. “But I think a little bit of teaching is OK,” she adds.

Though on-screen she is the new kid on the block, the Finglas native has been working with Met Éireann for nearly 15 years and has been reporting for RTÉ radio.

Married to fellow meteorologist Harm Luijkx, who she met when training in the UK, conversations about the weather are rarely constrained to the office.

“We do talk about the weather a lot. We disagree sometimes and it can get a little bit bristly. We both have strong opinions,” she says.

“He’s my colleague as well as my husband, so we can disagree over these things. We’ve recently had to tone down the conversations about the weather at home, because we do probably do it a bit too much. It is work at the end of the day,” says Joanna.

Despite her own love for the weather, she claims it is not a unique Irish obsession.

“In other countries they are just as obsessed. In Ireland our weather is quite benign. We don’t get tornadoes or hurricanes or monsoons. It’s never too hot or too cold,” she says. “However if you’re a farmer and your life is dictated by the weather it becomes much more important.

“Though there are a couple of tin foil hat conspiracists who think we have control of the weather, we don’t. The weather is definitely outside our control,” she says.

Meanwhile, recent comments about climate change and religion are a cause of concern for Joanna. “I think politicians have no place in bringing God into the discussion. They are public representatives, and their faith and the faith of any individual is a private matter. If they have strong beliefs, they need to keep them outside their public roles,” she adds.

Pomegranate

Outside of her day job, the mother-of-three also runs Pomegranate, a charity for people struggling with infertility, with her friend Fiona McPhillips. Both women struggled with secondary infertility and had to go through treatment to conceive a second child.

“It (infertility)is devastating, and it can devastate marriages and relationships. Not that everyone wants to have a baby, of course – lots of people choose not to – but if that’s what you’ve chosen it’s very hard,” she says.

“We help people access treatment for medical conditions that cause infertility. It is generally IVF, and that’s the most expensive one. Hopefully, with the very recent news that there is going to be State funding, we’ll be put out of business, which would be marvellous.

A total of seven babies have been born due to the charity’s work, having an extraordinary impact on families in receipt of help from the charity.

“It’s not only the babies themselves – it’s the impact they have on the families. There are aunts and uncles and grandparents, and those little babies are going to grew up and have babies of their own someday. I’d like to think that we’ve made a big impact on a small set of people. It’s huge,” she says.

Bright and brilliant

Having studied Applied Maths in DCU, Joanna thinks more females are becoming drawn to science subjects and careers.

“Certainly in Met Éireann, the new recruits have mostly been women. I’m not sure that the trend that was always there in history is continuing. All we need now is more women in management, because the men are still getting these jobs,” she says.

Seeing young women dumb themselves down “is very scary”, Joanna adds. However there’s no fear of that happening to her daughter Nicky, who has just started secondary school.

“I witnessed my daughter do it once when she was four years old. She was playing with a little boy, he was also four years old, and they were playing with her toy and he didn’t know how to play it. Rather than make him look silly, she pretended not to know. I’ve been drilling into her head since then that she doesn’t need to dumb down. Now she scornfully looks at me and says, there’s no way mum,” laughs Joanna.

Indeed, Nicky has a great role model in her mother – Ireland’s new favourite weather woman.

“It’s wonderful job. It’s nearly a job you would do if you weren’t doing it for your job – I’m very lucky,” she says

“And people seem to like me, which is nice.”