She’s very nice for someone from Dublin
How Lucy Kennedy found herself living it up with the Healy-Raes
THEY’RE Kerry’s first family – best known for their flat caps, climate change denial and trenchant support for the right of the rural dweller to enjoy a pint of an evening before driving home.
The TD brothers Michael and Danny are the most independent of the Independents in the Dáil, but what are they like to live with?
TV3 presenter Lucy Kennedy joined the Healy-Rae tribe and spent a weekend with Danny and Michael Healy-Rae at their family compound in the Kilgarvan area of Co. Kerry for the new series of her hit show, Living with Lucy, to be broadcast in the autumn.
Lucy, from Sandymount in south Dublin, was taken on various local constituency errands by the brothers as well as to a gala event at the INEC centre in Killarney.
‘It wasn’t on a holiday we were’
Last year’s series saw Lucy move in with Kerry Katona, Shane Long, Al Porter and Finbar Furey. But Lucy’s stay with the Healy-Raes will be TV gold, say sources.
‘As you can imagine, the red carpet was rolled out in the Kingdom for Lucy’s arrival,’ a source said. ‘They basically treated it like a Bord Fáilte tour of Kerry bringing her to all the beauty spots nearby as well as looking for Fungi and, of course, some local business they had helped politically.
‘There are some firecracker interviews and as you would imagine the Healy-Raes very much steal the limelight.’
Michael Healy-Rae, with whom Lucy stayed last weekend, took the presenter to Kenmare, Killarney and Tralee. He even brought her to a nearby self-styled ‘dance’.
As Michael said: ‘A neighbour puts up a marquee and it’s a type of céilí. Lucy is able to step it out and I was trying to keep up with her.
‘For a person from Dublin she was very nice. Someone asked her when it would be going out and she said “sometime in the fall” but that it would be on a lot sooner if she died in the meantime.
‘I didn’t have time to be bringing her around on horse and traps. It wasn’t on a holiday we were – it is what it is, doing what I do.’
The new series will feature 10 episodes. Lucy has previously spoken about hoping to enlist chef Marco Pierre White, TV presenter Piers Morgan and Kim Woodburn.
‘We’re shooting every second weekend and we have the research and the production and the voicing of the programme,’ Lucy said.
Lucy, 41, went on maternity leave from TV3’s Six O’Clock Show, giving birth to her third child Jessica in December. She is relishing working on the new series of Living With Lucy. When asked about her plans, she said: ‘I don’t know, Living With Lucy is going to be so time-consuming from now to September that I don’t think I’m going to have time to do anything else.
‘I’m going to stick with Living With Lucy from now until September. Then I’ll have to make a decision as to what I’m going to do. But right now, I can only concentrate on Living With Lucy because we have 10 to shoot.’
More details about the new season of Living With Lucy are expected to be announced at the station’s autumn launch.
Lucy was previously lined up to co-host a TV3 chat show with Baz Ashmawy. But Ashmawy withdrew due to a scheduling conflict.