I’d love a romance but he’d have to go home!
FOR almost a decade ‘Tesco’ Mary Byrne has been flying the flag for underdogs everywhere. She has battled celebrity, depression and adversity while trying to become that most unachievable of things – a breakthough female recording artist in her 50s. But with age comes wisdom and as the Ballyfermot single mum hurtles towards her 60th birthday, she reveals the dramatic metamorphism that has seen her shed a staggering five stone and quite literally saved her life. ‘I might look a million dollars but I don’t have a million dollars’, she says. ‘I feel fantastic. I feel that I have finally turned my whole life around since the X Factor.
‘When I came out of it first it was very scary because you don’t know what is going to happen. I had a management team for the UK but I decided to come home to Ireland.
‘If I had stayed there I would probably have done better. But I came home and I just didn’t know what was going to happen.
‘The first two years were chaotic because everyone wanted a piece of me. Then suddenly it stopped. I was on my own and I knew I had to either go back to Tesco or just keep going and I kept moving forward. As a result of that I got a slot on Celebrity Operation Transformation which changed my whole mind-set and health and who I am.’
Mary has always struggled with her weight. She reminds me that she was 21 stone when she was on the X Factor. After years of failed diet after diet she turned to Karl Henry and Celebrity Operation Transformation and hasn’t looked back since.
‘I think the big thing that was different this time around was that I was ready’, she says. ‘I had been on diets for years. Every time I would do one I would lose a stone, the diet would end and I would put it straight back on as soon as I stopped. That has been my life cycle.
‘Then I suffered with a thyroid illness and I just couldn’t lose weight at all; nothing worked. When OP Transformation came along they showed me the basic things that I should have always known as an adult. How to cook with good food, the proper oils to use and to never ever shop hungry.
‘Obvious things. So now I have porridge or eggs for breakfast, a salad or salmon for lunch and a proper dinner, but with the correct portion size. If I have meat it will be a small piece of meat, small potatoes and lots of vegetables.
But the big thing is exercise. I walk every day and I go swimming every second day. I have been eating less and moving more without denying myself anything. I take tips from Slimming World as well but I am convinced that moving has made the difference.’
As if to reinforce the point Mary casually alights a double stairwell in the Red Cow Hotel. One of the workmen stops and asks, ‘Is that the singer Mary Byrne? I wouldn’t have recognised her’. While diet is important Marty says her state of mind and her habits were harder to change.
‘I always thought that the arthritis held me back in my knees and my back’, she says. ‘I got this great gel called Flexiseq which is not a pain killer but it puts moisture back into the joints and that allowed me to exercise properly. And that was a game changer. Because I had used arthritis as an excuse not to exercise in the past but what I recently learned is that the best thing for arthritis is movement.
‘I used to sit on the sofa and look out at the park across from me and I would turn to Deborah and say “I think I’ll go for a walk tomorrow”.
‘I would put it off because of the pain in my legs but it was just an excuse. But I didn’t know the difference and now I have lost almost five and a half stone.
‘I want to lose two more. I look back at the footage of me on the X Factor and I am scarlet.
‘The other night I was scrolling through the YouTube videos looking for one song I had sung and the more I saw myself I couldn’t get over how unhealthy I looked.
‘At the time everyone was telling me how fabulous I looked but I looked awful. I looked so severe and unwell and just unhealthy. Looking back now I see that it is a place I once was but I am never going back there.
‘I am never going to be skinny but I am a lot healthier than I ever was. If I could go back and speak to her I would tell her to cop on and accept that the weight was killing me. That’s the truth, it would have killed me. If I can lose two more stones I will be a lot lighter and able to do more and nobody can stop me.’
There is no doubting Mary’s resolve. She has been hearing the word ‘no’ all her life, only this time she isn’t listening. Take her crime novel. She struggles writing print with a self-diagnosed learning disability. Instead she bought a Dictaphone and has now half her fiction book dictated.
‘I have nearly the first half of the book done’, she says. ‘I hope to have it finished after Christmas. I don’t write it down. What I do is I narrate it into a Dictaphone and I am halfway through it.
‘It started off as a chick lit book and then it moved on to a crime story. I started getting all these mad ideas. I am not a writer nor a novelist. But I have a story to tell and my imagination is running wild and it centres on this one young woman and a couple of murders affect her.
‘I have had two different twists already as I am talking so it is good, I think it is anyway. The thought of seeing someone else reading it is what drives me.
‘I need an editor because I can tell stories but I can’t write them down. I have always been a storyteller and I have a chick lit book on the boil as well and that is almost finished so it is an exciting time.’
Mary admits that she was more concerned with turning 50 than she is approaching 60.
‘I was 59 two weeks ago so the big 60 is coming up’, she says. ‘But if I look back at where I was when I was 49 – things couldn’t have been any different.
‘Back then I was still working in Tesco and getting up and trudging around in my uniform wondering is this was all my life is going to be? Heading into my 60s now is a whole different feeling. It is filled with positivity and I know next year is going to be better again.
‘The frame of mind I am in I will make sure it is a better year. I will make them happen. I have good friends now who will give me that lift and there is so much I want to do.
The big 60 is coming up... when I was 49 at Tesco I wondered if this was all my life is going to be
Mary Byrne has never been happier: with her weight, her career and as a mother but she is keeping the door open to love... with one condition
I still take anti-depressant tablets but do I let the demons eat me? No. When those little demons are in there and telling me not to do anything and stay indoors I get my runners and go for a walk.
‘I take my tablet and talk to my friends and I get past it. I have overcome so much over the last eight years.
‘I still have my moments and I am not brilliant and my life is not perfect. Nobody’s life is perfect, we are all striving for a better life but I have grown mentally as a person. I will not give up I will keep going.
‘I remember Louis Walsh told me once that the only way to make it in this business is to work hard and have as many fingers in as many pies as you can and don’t give up. That’s what I am doing now.’
One of those pies is the Cheerio’s Childline Panto at the Tivoli Theatre. This is the second year she has treaded the boards over the Christmas period and she says she loves the discipline needed to work every night entertaining kids and parents alike. It is a gruelling schedule yet she says she is proud to be part of such a Christmas institution alongside Alan Hughes and Joe Duffy.
‘The panto is something I always wanted to do. I tormented Karl Broderick and Alan Hughes last year to give me a part. They didn’t know if I could handle being on that stage for that big of a work load, but in the end he relented and wrote a part for me.
‘I was so disciplined. I didn’t drink form November when it started until the last day of the panto in January.
‘That was a huge lifestyle change for me. I am used to going out at weekends with my friends and singing. I had to regulate my food intake and my sleeping and put my heart and soul into it. But everyone else in the panto does that as well so you have strength in numbers. It becomes a family and you are all on the same wavelength and they help you along.’
MARY plays the role of Fairy Mary in the production of the classic pantomime Snow White.
‘It will be extra hard this year because I have a lot of gigs to do on top of the show but I am working with a great bunch and they get you through it.
‘I cried on stage when it ended last year. This year is the last one in the Tivoli and I feel very honoured to be part of it.
‘I love it and the intimacy of it. It is such a shame that this beautiful theatre is being taken away from the local community. It is just another Dublin institution that should have been up held and preserved. It is there as long as the Ivy Markets and it is sad to see these gorgeous buildings being looked after. The Cheerios Panto will go on I am sure but I will be sad when the curtain comes down this year.’
So with her ever-decreasing waistline and her professional aspirations on the rise, does Mary have any time for romance?
‘I had a bit of a fling a while ago’, she says. ‘I have too much in my life and I don’t need romance. If it came then I wouldn’t run from it.
‘I met a nice guy and we had a nice wear and tear as they call it. I really enjoyed his company but when he asked to see me again I just couldn’t.
‘I was engaged when I was 19 and married by the time I was 21 and that just didn’t happen. Then I went to Israel and met a gorgeous guy there called Dave and I was with him for a year and a half and we got engaged and moved back to London but that didn’t work out either and I moved back to Dublin.
Then I met Deborah’s dad and I don’t love him anymore, But it was a love that I experienced and I haven’t experienced that since.
‘And unless something like that comes around again then I am not really interested.
‘He would have to go home to his own house, I couldn’t live with someone again. I love my men but I love living at home with Deborah and I am my own person and I love the freedom. Do I get lonely? Sometimes. But not enough to settle for something not amazing. If I die without being married it won’t be the end of the world. But I will have had a great life.’ ÷The Cheerio’s Panto Snow White is on sale now...it’s their fastest selling panto ever. Book at www. tivoli.ie or call (01) 45 444 72.