Mary Byrne, the home-grown star of last year’s X Factor, has written a tell-all biography. Donal O’Donoghue meets her.
"I was talking to the taxi-driver on the way here and he asked me, 'has your life changed?' and I said, yeah and no. 'What do you mean?' he said. Well I can’t go out on the street without people recognising me and I can’t go into the shops without people recognising me, but when I go into my house and close the door, I’m still exactly the same. I’m still Mary. I still live in Ballyfermot. I’m not a rich woman and I’m not a poor woman. But I was never a poor woman. I’ve always had a rich spirit."
Mary Byrne wears her heart on her sleeve. But then you probably knew that already. Anybody who watched the Dubliner on last year’s X Factor could not but be moved by the big voice from Ballyfermot, and in person that warmth is amplified. At the Dublin hotel where we meet, the staff want to take photographs with her and the taxi driver steps out of his car for a chinwag while she has a quick smoke. 'The Byrne Factor' is how a recent newspaper headline put it – paying homage to the woman whose presence on a reality TV show boosted TV3’s 2010 business figures from loss to profit. "Wow!" says a surprised Byrne at this news. "I saw that headline on the Vincent Browne TV show but I thought it was all about politics.
" It is a less than a week after her brother-in-law, Liam, passed away. They were very close and the death – although not unexpected – has left Mary Byrne low. Ever since the death of her mother Lily in 1995, she has been living with depression. "I thought at the time that I was just grieving", she says. "One of the things my mother taught us was not to ever go into debt but I did then. I stopped paying my bills and couldn’t care. I went to my GP who referred me to psychiatrists and I was diagnosed with depression. I remember crying for a solid hour and thinking 'what the hell is wrong with me?' It was a tough time but when I came out of that it was like somebody had lifted weights off my body."
Despite that, Byrne is an optimist: someone who always sees the glass half full. Depression is part of her life now and she is still taking anti-depressants today. "Some people can get through by just talking about it and don’t need the medication but I went on them because I needed them", she says. "I have no embarrassment talking about them and I’ll stay on them until they keep me where I am. If ten mils keep me afloat then why not take them? I have no side-effects whatsoever. There are moments when I miss my mammy and now I’ve lost my brother-in-law Liam and I have been depressed over the last few days: that horrible and frightened feeling. The only light I have is that I have my faith and I’m on the tablets. I know that I’m going to come back up again."
Now Byrne has written a biography, This is My Life, in which she chronicles her working class roots, a long-ago lesbian affair, her life as a single mother, her time as a supermarket check-out worker and how, in her 50s, she has at last found her true path. "When I was young I was told that I could sing but I never believed it", she says. "I was too self-conscious to do what people saw in me. But my faith was always there. I always believed that God would lead me in the right direction. It took me a long time to believe that I could give myself over to a higher power. To me that is Christ. When I did that every door that was previously closed was wide open."
Byrne grew up in the heart of the working-class Dublin suburb of Ballyfermot, the youngest of five. Spoilt? "I think I was", she says. "My parents doted on me and I was probably the one that caused them more trouble than anyone else by running away from home and becoming pregnant and all that."
Her biography paints her as a bit of a wild one but someone who was also attuned to life. "I was always a very sensitive soul", she says. "I’m a great crier. My dad was a big softie who would cry when watching Lassie. I was the same."
As a kid, she immersed herself in Hollywood musicals and dreamed of being Gene Kelly’s leading lady (she also toyed with the notion of becoming a nun!). "I would have loved to have been an actress and never had the longing to be anything else", she says. "I didn’t realise that until recently."
Writing the book was therapeutic for her. It reawoke old demons and resurrected traumatic incidents – the time she was nearly abducted as a kid – that never surfaced during her counselling sessions. "Other stuff came up that I didn’t put into the book", she says.
But perhaps the most dramatic revelation is that Byrne dated a woman for two years. It was the story that the newspapers splashed and the headline that mortified her daughter Deborah. "She saw it in a newsagents in town – big headline screaming at her – and said to me, 'Gee ma, thanks a lot!" but it didn’t knock a bit out of her. 'That’s me ma', she said. That was part of me life, it made me what I am today and I don’t regret it."
Deborah is now 24. "I was a selfish bitch at times though, when I think about it", she says. "I rebelled and I wanted to go out and all that. I should have been there for my daughter. Even though Deborah was the most precious thing that came into my life, I still wanted my freedom. And honestly, I still wanted to see Robbie [Deborah’s father], even up to Deborah being 15 or 16, I still had feelings for him. I hated him for what he did but I couldn’t stop those feelings I had for him."
She still lives in Ballyfermot with Deborah. She doesn’t drive and says that while she is not poor she is by no means mega-wealthy. But The X Factor changed Mary Byrne’s life. It boosted her confidence, reaffirmed her self-belief and made her a household star. "I never thought that I was worthy of anything", she says. "Now I know that I’m worthy. In the past, I always thought that everyone was worthy of happiness but me. Don’t ask me why. I can’t even give meself an honest answer on that. I always felt that I was never worthy of receiving any sort of happiness or love as a young girl. And yet I had a happy childhood. So I don’t know. Maybe it’s just something in my genes."
When she sang her mother’s favourite song, It’s a Man’s World on The X Factor it brought the house down. In that moment, Byrne believes that the ghost of her mother was there with on her on stage. "The night before she died I went home to feed Mammy", she says of her mother, who in her final years suffered from Alzheimer’s. "But she was just lying there: her eyes closed and her breathing was laboured. I called the doctor and later gave her a quick wash and a bit of a slagging: because even in her pain she would still smile. Then as I was leaving, I roared across the room: 'I love you ma, see you tomorrow' and she said, 'I love you too Mary'. That was such a shock, because for the first time in a long time she knew who I was. She passed away later that night."
Towards the end of the book, Byrne says that she has ticked all the boxes in life except for the relationship one. She is still single. "If there’s someone out there who’s willing to put up with this old nag", she says and laughs. "I’d love him to have his own place and not to come in and live in me home. I’m too happy and content in my own house. I’m very set in me ways. So he’d have to be understanding or set in his ways too. Then we’d never get anywhere. But I would like a friendship first before a relationship."
And Wagner? She laughs. "He came with me to the recent wedding of a friend. We’re just good friends and he’s good fun." She still watches The X Factor: and would, even if it wasn’t part of her brief as a newspaper columnist. "I watched it for six years prior to me going on it", she says. "The main difference now is that I know how it all works and what happens backstage."
Even so, she’s stumped when asked to pick a likely winner for 2011. "Mischa is so polished and with such a fantastic voice, but that might be her downfall because the audience may not empathise with her", she says.
Mary Byrne’s new album is With Love. "They’re not all belters like my last album", she says of the tracks on a release primed for the lucrative Christmas market. Typically, she is modest about her ambitions. "I’d love it to make the Irish Top Ten", she says.
Her diary for 2012 is full. In the New Year, she’s will be touring with Grease, her album will be released in the UK on St Valentine’s Day and there are also a few other projects bubbling under. She’d still like to be a nun, albeit a singing nun in the stage-show Sister Act. "I’d like to be the big nun that was in the film, the funny one", she says. "I’d love that part." Then she gives me a hug and heads home to the pot of coddle that she made earlier.
Donal O'Donoghue
