AUDREY MCGRATH

This RTE weather girl loves singing and salsa, says Joanna Kiernan, and she can’t stand being boxed in. Photographby Gerry Mooney

She’s a woman of many talents.

Presenting the weather forecast on RTE television is just one string to this Cork woman's bow. “Singing has always been a passion of mine,” Audrey reveals. “I was part of the Monforts stage school in Cork in my late teens. Come my early 20s, I wanted to hone my vocal skills further, so I trained classically. I even flew to London for a vocal session with vocal coach to the stars, David Grant, who trained Mel C and Will Young. He said, ‘You have all the money in the bank, you just need to know how to spend it!' and I'm still just learning how to spend it. I'm a work-in-progress. For now, at least, singing is just a hobby.”

Talking is Audrey's favourite pastime.

Broadcasting was an obvious career choice for this social butterfly. “Broadcasting was something that I thought would suit me — first of all, because I like to talk, and the common denominator in everything that I've ever done is people,” says Audrey.

She's a middle child.

“I'm the second youngest, so there's one below me and there are two older than me; four girls altogether,” she explains. “The youngest girl is an engineer, the next girl up from me is a member of An Garda Siochana, and the eldest girl is in human resources.”

She has danced her way through life.

Audrey loves Latin dancing. “When I went into first year in UCC, I wanted to get involved in all sorts of activities so that I knew what my passions in life were,” she explains. “So I did everything from salsa dancing to trampolining, and the salsa dancing won out. It was the first thing I took up in my life where I thought, 'Oh my God, this comes very naturally!' I'm not keen on tango, though. The tango is about boxes and I don't like to be put in a box!”

Fashion is one of her passions.

“I love fashion,” she beams. “I like nothing better than to catch a fashion show of an evening. Very often, I'll adopt elements of what I see on a runway, rather than a complete look, simply because I think it's important to dress for your shape, as opposed to just following a trend.”

She doesn’t mind people moaning about the weather.

“Sometimes, viewers can give us a hard time if we get the forecast wrong but, if they do at all, it's always only in a jokey way,” she laughs. “This is Ireland, after all, so they know what to expect. Mind you, I'm well able to take credit for the sunshine we get, so, when it's miserable, the least I can do is hear people out.”