Meet Seven O'Clock Show star Lucy Kennedy

There is a point that Irish Country Living fears we might have to wrestle Lucy Kennedy to the ground – aka Mrs Doyle and her pal in that famous episode of Fr Ted – such is her insistence that she pays for the coffee consumed during our interview.

Eventually we win (no TV presenters were harmed in the financial transaction) and, with a hug, go our separate ways: Lucy to pick up her children Jack and Holly from school and crèche, before she goes to work on TV3 at 4pm; and us to coo, to anybody who will listen, about just how warm, witty and down-to-earth she is.

“I’ve been told several times I look like Lucy Kennedy,” she laughs when we first meet.

“And I go: ‘Is that a good thing?’ But that implies that I basically look shocking in the flesh,” she adds.

“I’m happiest in a tracksuit with UGGs or runners, or jeans and a hoodie, no makeup, hair in a ponytail, Sudocrem on my spots; that’s where I’m at my most comfortable.”

And it seems that as co-host of The Seven O’Clock Show with Martin King, Lucy finally feels she can be herself – albeit in studio makeup: the time slot giving an outlet to her self-confessed “naughty streak”, but, more importantly, allowing her to put family first.

“At 7.58pm, I literally take out my ear piece and go: ‘Right, I’m out of here.’ And I sprint like a bat out of hell to get home by 8.20pm, just in time to kiss Jack and Holly before they go to sleep. It’s so important to me. Honestly, that is my number one thing,” she says.

“I’m not one of these people who is trying to prove a point, trying to get up the career ladder. I love what I do and I will hopefully succeed in what I do, but Jack and Holly are my number one thing and once they’re OK, everything else will be fine.

“But if my job didn’t suit my children, I wouldn’t do it. I really wouldn’t. And especially with Jack being five, I see how quickly the years go by. I don’t want to miss a second. I really don’t.”

On the subject of time, it’s hard to believe it is almost 10 years since Lucy made her debut as Podge and Rodge’s long-suffering sidekick, but the Dún Laoghaire native admits she “hadn’t a rashers” what she wanted to do as a teenager.

“I did worry because I had friends who said, ‘I want to be a vet’, ‘I want to be a doctor’, and they had long-term plans, whereas I didn’t,” she recalls.

After repeating her Leaving Cert (where she admits her biggest improvement was in her pool-playing prowess) Lucy joined CityJet as an air hostess and says that it was after she became fond of the plane’s PA system that she first considered a career in broadcasting.

“The pilots would say: ‘Listen, passengers really don’t need to know what you had for breakfast,’” she says. “But because they were strapped in and couldn’t move, I had an audience ... a captive audience.”

However, she was so overwhelmed by the self-assurance of her classmates on the first day of her TV course that she initially decided she would be better behind the scenes. Even years later, it’s surprising to learn that confidence is something she still struggles with.

“There is a shyness to me,” she admits. “I’m totally comfortable doing what I’m doing now because I’ve been trained to do it, but there are still times at red carpet events or the IFTAS or the Style Awards where it’s kind of all eyes on me for a second or two – I feel sick to my stomach.”

One of her first jobs was as a runner in RTÉ, where she recalls that Eamon Dunphy – who she adores – once sent her to Argos for a foot spa. She had presented dating show The Ex Files and a few segments on No Frontiers when she was invited to audition for The Podge and Rodge Show; a job that “changed her life”.

But after three years with the terrible twosome, RTÉ asked if she wanted to front her own show.

“I thought: ‘Do I want to be Louise – as the public would call me – from Podge and Rodge for the rest of my life?” she recalls.

“I had two months agonising over what to do, and in the end I cried and said: ‘Okay, I have to do it. If I don’t make this break from the boys now, I will be Debbie McGee to Paul Daniels.’”

Livin’ With Lucy – where Kennedy lived with a variety of celebrities, including the late Jade Goody, Jermaine Jackson, Sonia O’Sullivan and Twink – ran for three seasons, while she also presented a 2FM breakfast show with Baz Ashwamy.

In the midst of this, she also married her husband Richard Governey, a management consultant (“I fell in love with him because he made me laugh. He fell in love with me because he said I ate like a man”) and started her family.

However, after the radio show was axed in a shake-up of 2FM, Lucy became frustrated when pitches she made for new TV projects to RTÉ were rejected on budget grounds, resulting in a hiatus that saw her off-air for six months – and questioning her own future.

“They kept reassuring me, but no matter what they said, I thought: ‘If I’m not on the TV, maybe you don’t think I’m good enough?’ And they were saying: ‘Of course we think you’re good enough,’” she recalls.

“But it’s very hard to explain that to somebody when you’re not on the TV.”

Enter TV3, who invited Lucy to audition for Late Lunch Live in 2013, which was moved to a later time slot and rebranded as The Seven O’Clock Show earlier this year.

She says she is happier than ever in the role and in herself, as she faces turning 40 next year.

“I’m reaching a very comfortable place in my life where I’m happy with me, I’m happy with my life, I don’t really care what people think about me,” she says.

“I don’t mind that I’m going to be 40, 45, 46. I think I’m always going to be the same. I just think it’s funny because I just see myself as being a very immature person. I find it funny that I’m a mum. I find it funny that I have a job, a car. I still see myself as a naughty 18-year-old.

“Often when Jack or Holly go: ‘Mom.’ I say: ‘Oh. That’s me.’