MARY COUGHLAN

Singer

How many grandchildren do you have?

I have six grandchildren ranging in age from two to 16 years old.

Is it nice that there’s a good range in age – you can spend time with the baby and then have a proper chat with the teenagers?

It is. It’s extraordinary to watch them grow. It doesn’t seem that long since my eldest granddaughter was a baby. I often get memories on my phone from this day years ago of them when they were younger. I like having videos, it makes it easy to see them while I’m away [touring].

Are you more of a softy with your grandchildren than with your own children?

It’s a very different feeling from having your own children, but it’s a great feeling. I’m definitely not a softy, but I do a lot more with them than I did with my kids. We go away on trips and things like that together. I do lots of stuff with them that I didn’t have the time to do with my own children.

It must be nice now to spend some downtime with them when you’re not gigging.

It’s great! They come here [to Galway] to me a lot. And I love taking the kids to the movies. I’ve endured so many movies I would never usually go to see! But it’s nice to see them enjoying it.

Are you close with them?

Over the Covid period I got particularly close with them. It was one of the longest periods of time that I’ve actually been in my house. We’re a very, very close family anyway, but I am away a lot. I go away for long periods of time, I was away in March and April because I was in Australia touring but we can FaceTime and stuff. The older two have phones now too, so we can text.

Besides the cinema, what other things do you all do together?

We’ve been to Disneyland, all of us except the two youngest. We went for a long weekend with their dads for one trip, and with my daughters for another trip. I’ll have to do that again when the two younger ones get a bit older. You can’t really bring a twoyear-old to Disneyland, there’s not much for them there! We did a big family holiday last year with all of the children and all of the grandchildren. They were also all just here recently for a lovely family barbecue.

Do you try to give them any life mantras or teach them important lessons?

No, that’s their parents’ job!