Melissa Hayward

Model/Store owner

I’ve wanted tattoos since I was about three, but I waited until I was 18 to get my first. From very young, I knew that I wanted to be completely covered, so this isn’t something that just happened, it is something I planned. The way I see it is, everyone has the same boring skin — I like pretty pictures, I like to wear the art of artists I admire.

Everyone expects me to have a big, long meaningful story behind every tattoo, but most of them I have just because I like the look.

One or two have meaning, like I have my dog’s portrait on the back of my leg, and a raven on the inside of my leg, because my dad, who is dead, had a pet raven for 22 years that could talk.

My mum is mostly cool with it — the only ones she was a bit unsure of were the ones on my hands, because you can’t cover them up, so she gave me grief about them. Then, a few months later she went and got a tattoo on her hand.

I run a tattoo stall in Galway, and we have some of the top artists in the world working with us, but not everyone wants to pay for quality. I’m still amazed that people will happily spend €100 on pair of jeans they might wear twice, and then scrimp on a bad tattoo, going for the guy who charges €50 less. They often then spend a fortune covering it up or getting laser.

Years ago, it wasn’t common for girls to have tattoos, and people would ask me, ‘But what are you going to do when you get married and have to wear a wedding dress?’

Now, tattoos are so common that practically everyone has one. That said, people can still be judgmental — they might think I’m wild or reckless because of the way I look. In fact, I’m the opposite; I don’t do drugs or even drink much; bed by nine most nights.