‘I still get recognised and approached every single day because of Young Offenders’

Actress and podcaster Hilary Rose is renowned for her star turn as put-upon matriarch Mairéad in the quintessential Cork show, writes Tanya Sweeney

The Young Offenders might have Cork DNA running through it, but the Irish comedy that counts Cillian Murphy as a fan has also found a deeply appreciative audience in Asia.

“Apparently it’s massive in China,” Hilary Rose, who stars in the series as put-upon matriarch Mairéad, says. “We met this lovely Japanese lady who became a fan, and she took photos of the locations by frame, travelled to Cork on her own, found the locations and then photographed her photo against [the locations]. We ended up contacting her to tell her it was amazing, and then she travelled all the way back to meet us. It was so random.”

Since arriving onto Irish screens in February 2018, The Young Offenders has found a devoted audience, meaning that Rose herself is well-recognised around the People’s Republic. In 2019, for its second series, the show was one of RTÉ’s biggest streaming hits, securing over 1.05 million streams on the broadcaster’s player alone. In the UK, business was even more brisk: the comedy landed 3.1 million streaming requests within one week after returning to BBC Three, beating the previous best set by Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s hit Fleabag.

“The show hasn’t been on screens for four years, barring repeats, and I still get approached every single day,” she says. “Just this morning I was at the Mitchelstown Caves — random, I know, but it was for an event I’m hoping to plan in January — and this school tour showed up and that was fab. I went to Brighton a few weeks ago, and I was like, ‘great, now I won’t be seen, I’ll just slip into this invisibility’. I got to the train station at Gatwick and the next thing there were these young [British] fellas going ‘oh my God, oh my God, it’s you’.”

This might be something that Rose may need to get even more used to: for its fourth series, The Young Offenders is making a leap to a prime-time slot on BBC One tonight. Previously, the show had been broadcast on the BBC iPlayer, or on the relatively niche digital channel BBC Three, as well as on RTÉ (the show’s new series will appear on RTÉ in 2025, a decision reportedly prompted by last year’s €10 million cost-cutting exercise at the broadcaster).

“I think there’s an extra kind of layer to it that I feel we’re maybe not even fully aware of yet until it goes out,” Rose notes of the show’s migration to another channel. “The cast have matured — well, grown — over the last four years, and you can sense that in the production and that lends itself to the comedy.”

The Young Offenders, co-written and directed by Rose’s husband Peter Foott, has managed what several RTÉ comedies have tried and failed, capturing the imaginations of an exacting and fickle teenage audience. They even managed to persuade Roy Keane — Rose’s teenage crush, and in her words, “a real gent” — to film a cameo in Series 2.

What does Rose feel is the secret to the show’s success? “I feel you could take those characters, give them different accents and put them in different cities, and it would work in any city in the world,” she says. “Sometimes things just hit a slipstream and it just catches fire and it’s the right time for that thing to happen.”

Has the show’s creator writer (and Rose’s husband) Peter Foott made any concessions to the show, now that is switching away from the ostensibly ‘edgier’ BBC Three to BBC One?

“Knowing it was going on BBC One, I think the only thing that really changed was the swear count — we really had to pare it back,” Rose explains. “There was one take I did, a party scene, and I was told, ‘just go for it’. It was such a wild riff — Mairéad loses her sh** over something — but it didn’t make the cut. Too many expletives in there.”

Fans needn’t worry as, blue air aside, things will be very much business as usual. Series 4 opens with a very on-brand scenario for Conor (Alex Murphy) and Jock (Chris Walley) — the pair have been caught attempting to smuggle drugs out of Colombia. Jock finds himself banged up in South America, while Conor manages to make it back to Ireland before being imprisoned. By the time Conor emerges from a few years inside, he finds his Cork locale, and several of his loved ones, much-changed. Rose reprises her role as Conor’s mum Mairéad, now loved up with husband Sergeant Tony Healy [Dominic McHale].

In returning to Mairéad, Rose finds herself working alongside her husband Peter again — how has that been?

“Oh this is a very 1950s question, come on,” she admonishes, laughing. “We’re very removed from what we do. He’s at one end, and I’m at the other end. At home, we genuinely don’t discuss it. He’s in the office, writing, and my job is on set.”

While Rose has acted sporadically in recent years (Finding Joy and Smother are just two of her more recent projects), Rose has gravitated towards a passion project, her Live Wild podcast, which touches on spirituality, personal development and culture.

“It totally lights my fire,” Rose enthuses.

Knowing it was going on BBC One, I think the only thing that really changed was the swear count

“It’s completely me and everything I want to talk about. I’m really interested in people’s journeys; where they’ve started and where they want to go.”

The Young Offenders’ cast members have recorded an episode of the podcast with Rose, as have a number of celebrities. “Jason Byrne was on season two, and Dermot Whelan is on an episode talking about meditation. It’s funny, because we would have had a bit of career crossover, having the background in music and working in comedy together.”

Varied career

Certainly, Rose has enjoyed a varied professional life to date. Acting aside, her career has run the gamut, from being a club DJ in Dublin and Cork to a lecturer on the drama degree programme at the Cork School of Music, and a writer in her own right.

Originally from Montenotte, Rose left St Angela’s College on St Patrick’s Hill with a view to doing something in music. A teenage Rose took a gig in Cork’s pirate station, Radio Friendly, before becoming a regular DJ on the Cork scene. She eventually wound this down when her son Jake, now eight, was born (she also has a four-year-old daughter, Olivia).

The acting siren song was heard a little later, and she moved to Dublin to train at the Gaiety School of Acting. Soon, Rose was juggling straighter acting roles on The Tudors and Vikings with comedy acting and writing gigs on The Fear and Republic of Telly. After completing a Master’s in Screenwriting at the Institute of Art & Design in Dún Laoghaire in 2014, Rose is also working on a number of writing projects.

Now into her 40s, Rose notes that the nature of acting roles that she gets offered has slightly changed: “Sometimes there can be a little bit of typecasting but I always laugh and say to my agent, ‘typecast is cast, baby’. You have to be aware that once you play a character that’s kind of big in the public domain, people will come to you for a similar kind of character.”

The Live Wild podcast, with its spiritual themes and focus on the holistic, provides a great antidote to the anxieties and challenges of being a creative, multi-hyphenate freelancer.

“It’s what was lacking in my life for a very long time, and it feels like it’s pulling me a lot closer these days,” Rose says of the podcast’s focus on wellbeing. “I’m really happy to engage on that level and I feel much calmer, much happier.”

The new series of The Young Offenders starts on Friday May 10 on BBC One at 9.30pm. The Live Wild podcast is available on Spotify and Acast.