Nuala Carey: 'There's a thrill to every forecast'

An interview with Irish Country Living or the chance to interview Hollywood A-lister Gerard Butler? For Nuala Carey, well, it was a no brainer. “You know, some things are more important than Gerard Butler,” she jokes, “and you are one of those things.”

(Though, to be fair, she had also volunteered to provide holiday cover on Telly Bingo before the offer came in to fly to London to interview the actor about his weather-related action flick, Geostorm. Still, Irish Country Living is flattered to have partly pipped Butler to the post.)

You get the impression that the RTÉ weather presenter is not one to have her head turned by celebrity – a quality she might attribute to her rural roots in Cork and Mayo, despite being raised in Monkstown, Co Dublin.

“If Dublin are playing and Mayo are playing, I support Mayo. And if Dublin are playing against Cork, I support Cork. That’s where we spent all our summers,” she says. “I’m not a Dub, and I say that straight out.”

In fact, her Instagram profile lists “Queen of the Plough” among her achievements, having beaten the likes of Ray D’Arcy, Sean O’Rourke, Packie Bonner and Mary Coughlan to the top spot during this year’s Ploughing Live TV shows.

“Both my parents grew up on farms – Dad is from Lombardstown, Mallow, Co Cork, and Mam is from Ballyglass, Claremorris, Co Mayo – so when I was asked to do the challenge, some of my family thought it was quite funny – myself included – and I didn’t want to come last,” she says.

“But it never crossed my mind that I might actually do well. I was so surprised. I was kind of just very proud of myself because I knew my parents were very happy about it … even my uncle said it to me on the phone: ‘In a way, it’s a shame your grandmother has passed away, because she would have loved this.’”

FORECASTING FOR FARMERS

The trophy she won sits proudly in her parents’ (Maurice and Anne) sitting room. They both came to Dublin to work in the civil service, met, married and had three daughters: Lynda, Nuala and Brenda. While quiet at school, Nuala reflects on how she blossomed through involvement in drama during transition year and went on to act in local plays as well as in films as an extra, most notably getting a call the morning after her debs to come to the set of Braveheart to be the body double for Mel Gibson’s character’s wife.

“I was covered in fake tan and I was meant to be playing a corpse, so I had to scrub that off!”

She was even offered a place to study drama in Trinity, but “slightly panicked”, and opted instead for English and sociology.

“But I don’t regret it, I really don’t,” she says. “I think it was the right decision.”

However, her star was to shine in other ways. In her final year at UCD, Nuala volunteered on Anna Livia FM, which led to her first job with AA Roadwatch, before an ad looking for new presenters saw her join the weather team in 1999.

“And I still love my job as much as I did the first day,” she says. “There’s variety because every day the weather changes – that’s the nature of the beast – and I’m doing live bulletins with no autocue. There is a thrill to every forecast and I feel every forecast is a new forecast. You have to wipe the slate clean and start again. I am a perfectionist and I like it to be right – and I take the job seriously.”

She is also aware of the importance of the forecast to the farming community.

“In our house, because there was that farming background, we were a family who watched the news and the news was not over until the weather was over,” she says, explaining that the highlight of her year is her annual broadcast from the Ploughing, where she has built up a warm relationship with many of her rural viewers.

“There’s people who send me Christmas cards, there’s people who actually bring me in chocolates when I’m there, I get a bunch of flowers every year from a farmer in Wexford to welcome me to the Ploughing: there’s such a lovely atmosphere,” she explains.

(And just yesterday, she got a Valentine’s card in the post, “which was either way too early or way too late,” she smiles. “He told me he likes when I read out the Lotto numbers, but I didn’t read out his!”)

As well as her weather duties, Nuala also presents the national lottery draws and has filled in on programmes including Winning Streak in the past. However, she is always open to opportunities to step outside her comfort zone, whether it was channelling her inner Madonna and Britney Spears on Celebrity You’re A Star in 2007 for the Alzheimer Society of Ireland or stepping into Maura Derrane’s shoes on Today with Maura and Dáithí last year.

Looking forward, she would love to present a lifestyle programme in a similar vein to Operation Transformation, but just appreciates the opportunities she has enjoyed to date.

“Do you know the way people are always striving for the next thing? I’m very happy with everything I have as well,” she says. “I know ambition is good … but you can’t bring the job with you either. It is a job. Your family and your friends are very important; they’re more important, really.”

Family chrismas

And Christmas is family time for Nuala, who will be off weather duty this year and looking forward to “sentimental” traditions like setting the table on Christmas Eve, watching The Sound of Music and hibernating for the few days with her nearest and dearest.

“I always say: ‘We’re all here and we’re all happy and I hope we’ll all be here again this time next year,’” says Nuala, whose birthday also falls just before Christmas, though she says that she usually tries to keep it low key.

Indeed, off-duty, she enjoys simple pleasures like walking or going for a run, diving into the latest page-turner (Career of Evil by JK Rowling’s alias Robert Galbraith is next on her list) or escaping to the countryside. And while she has to turn up the glamour for television, her own tastes are more modest; her favourite lipstick, for example, is “Prohibition” by Deluxe, which she picked up in a bargain basket in Boots for €2

“On my days off, I’m very happy to not be made up and dress down and I think in the way there can be two Nuala Careys,” she says. “There’s television Nuala and there’s day off Nuala.”

No matter which Nuala you might meet, however, you won’t be disappointed. Gerard Butler missed out. CL

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