1. Miriam on keeping her fashion her own (and affordable too!)
You would think with public status comes expensive new clothes and freebies! But Miriam keeps a level head with her fashion. For the Leaders Debate this year, she wore €1.50 earrings and €4 shoes, reduced from €11, from Penney’s as she told The Irish Times Róisín Ingle.
And that's not all: "I have never bought a handbag that cost more than €29… I don’t take freebies. I’ve never taken a car to drive or a dress to wear for the IFTAs, even though I get offered that every year. I’ve never taken jewellery," Miriam revealed in a Hot Press interview.
2. Miriam on working your best assets!
Miriam keeps herself fit by using dumbbells in her bedroom - her advice is to work on your best features. For Miriam that could arguably be everything! But she’s narrowed it down, as she told the RTÉ Guide: "I think you should work on your best features and so I work on my arms."
3. Miriam on handling disappointment
Whether it is in her career or personal life, her husband Steve Carson believes that Miriam is a prime example of how to bounce back from disappointment.
"Steve says that one of my best traits is that if something bad happens, like losing out on a job or someone writes something bad about you, I bounce back ten minutes later. I have lots of strong female DNA going back generations in my blood."
4. Miriam on being in love
Aside from her successful career, Miriam has plenty to be happy with; she’s in love!
"I’m known for my career and I really like it, but it’s not fundamental to my happiness. I am happy when I feel very loved, cared for, wanted. I love being in love.
"It makes everything in your life easier. I wake up in the morning, I text him. If I do an interview and it doesn’t go well, I think ‘Ah well, I have my love.’ I never look at another man. I am totally fulfilled. I am very grateful for it," as she told The Irish Times, Look the Business.
5. Miriam on caring for everyone...yes...everyone!
If someone is mean to you, then there’s a reason; one you should really care about as she told the Independent: "I say this to my children if they tell me someone was mean or someone was picking a fight with them, and I say it to grown adults as well, 'You don't know what happened to them this morning or what their life is at home', and you might think you don't care, but you have to care. Because usually, if someone is mean, it's because their life is unhappy in some way."
6. Miriam on being tough with negativity
Being in the public eye, Miriam has had her fair share of scrutiny, including online maliciousness. But with a positive outlook, she refuses to be intimidated on Twitter or anywhere.
"I understand that Twitter can be a cruel and nasty place but I'm still on it", she said, "Maybe because I'm a bit of a toughie and I don't want to be driven off a platform that is very useful to my job. If you treat people with great politeness they normally respond in kind."
7. Miriam on keeping a positive outlook
Admitting your happy can be tricky but as someone who has suffered loss in their life, Miriam believes that a positive outlook is very important, as she told The Mirror: "Somewhat unusually I'm a very happy person but sometimes you're afraid to say that for fear of tempting fate. But you know happiness if you've ever seen the dark side of life. From the moment my sister Anne died, I've always tried to look on the positive side of life".
8. Miriam on appreciating life
Losing a loved one can be a challenging moment for anyone. The tragic passing of her sister Anne, at just 33, following a battle with cancer made Miriam more appreciative of life.
“Funnily enough [Anne’s death] didn’t make me worry about my health, it made me acutely aware of appreciating life. I just realised very young that you should live your life as well as you can, enjoy it and be kind to people."
(There's so much...we'll give you 9!) Miriam on Motherhood
Raising four girls and then four boys, Miriam is the typical Irish Mammy, often worrying and always putting their needs above her own: "I struggle with being a mother because you never know what is the right thing to do but to put it simply, all you can do is love your children and always be there for them," she told The Mirror recently.
"That's all I have ever done and one of the reasons I never wanted to work as a foreign correspondent. I always wanted to be in my own bed in the middle of the night so that if my children wanted me, I would be there."
Miriam returns to RTÉ One to present ‘Saturday Night with Miriam’ at 9.45pm, kicking off July 9.
