Sonya Lennon on positive aging and celebrating her 50s

Sínann Fetherston sat down with Sonya Lennon to discuss her recent podcast series, her views on aging, and the legacy of beloved Irish fashion brand Lennon & Courtney.

Having appeared on Driving Progress with Audi in 2022, broadcaster and designer Sonya Lennon has taken on the role of host for season two of the inspirational podcast.

Interviewing the likes of Rob Kearney, Robbie Henshaw, and Shane Walsh, the Dublin-based author gets to grips with the passions, beliefs, morals, and motivations of her guests.

With all this in mind, we sat down with Lennon to discuss the lessons learned from these in-depth discussions and what she applies to her own life.

"It's gorgeous," she says of the series. "What a privilege to be in the room with all these amazing people and hear their stories. That's me in my happy place, to be honest with you."

"I think when you look at the series, the themes that just keep coming up are a real sense of humanity, people who are driven by really good fundamental values, people who are humble but driven at the same time. They all have purposes that are bigger than themselves. It's about a bigger picture."

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Now firmly in her 50s, Lennon says she is determined to bring a positive attitude to this stage of her life, and has set herself the challenge to unlearn the stories she previously told herself in order to rebuild for this new phase.

"There's a woman called Eleanor Mills in the UK who coined the name 'queenager'," she laughs. "She describes it as being like a teenager but with a higher thread count.

"Look, I am in a very privileged position in my career that I have the opportunity to do really nice things - not everyone has that - and I'm also physically well and fit which is a privilege in itself.

"Loads of women my age are suffering through horrendous symptoms from menopause. I'm not affected by any of that, I may be yet, but I feel duty-bound to tell the story of the possible rather than talk about the negatives.

"There is a lot of conversation around the negative side of aging out there but there's so much to be positive about. My kids turn 18 in January and I feel like I have a new rule book. Everything is possible. I am absolutely refusing to take responsibility of cooking dinners once the Leaving Cert is over."

Although she insists that progress is anything but linear, Lennon's CV thus far boasts an impressive and varied career in fashion, television, and beyond.

Although Lennon & Courtney, her long-running clothing brand with friend and colleague Brendan Courtney, has left the shelves of Dunnes (more on that later), the broadcaster has remained booked and busy.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, as she began to broach her 50s, she decided to try her hand at third-level education for the first time, earning herself a Masters in Business, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion which she now applies to her role in Work Equal, an organisation that provides professional workplace styling and career consultation for women.

Advocating for workplace equality and fair remuneration through discussions with government and elected representatives, this volunteer-run organisation has delivered services to thousands of women across the country - and they know how to host a serious disco brunch fundraiser.

"It was phenomenal," she says of the disco-themed event. "Myself and Brendan have a rule that when it stops being fun, we walk away. The rule for everything that we do, and that I do, is that it has to have a fun element, or else, what's the point? Disco is my love language."

"I love the work that we do and we're now at a really strong point in the organisation, we're scaling to become an island-wide service, and we're very soon going to announce some major changes in terms of growth."

Having recently been called as an expert witness to present at the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality, Lennon says Ireland has a long way to go when it comes to truly welcoming women into the workplace.

"There is a document called Unfinished Democracy which is a blueprint for a more equal Ireland and that really lays out where we need to get to when it comes to universal childcare and assisted childcare for all."

"It's not going to be comfortable," she adds. "Big things are going to have to change and that's been a big rumbling debate that has been going on for years, but we need to create structures in our society that allow women to work and don't penalise them for working.

Winding down our chat, the conversation turns to the end of a chapter for Lennon & Courtney, a brand that has saved many an Irish person in the run-up to weddings, christenings, birthdays and semi-formal events abound.

Since announcing that the designs would be pulled from shelves, Lennon says she has been shrouded in adoration from fashion fans.

"I feel like I've been love bombed," she laughs. "It's absolutely extraordinary and we didn't expect, to be honest with you. It's like an iceberg effect; the messages you could see were above the water line but privately the DMs and e-mails and WhatsApp messages were overflowing."

Although this iteration of the brand has ended, she promises that she and Brendan's collaborative efforts are far from over: "We're working hard; we're planning, we're plotting and good things are coming."

In the meantime, the duo will be keeping busy (as ever) with a new podcast series surrounding

"Myself and Brendan are recording season 10 of the podcast at the moment and we're really excited about it. The subtitle is You Can't Say That Anymore, so we're exploring language and communication around difference and how we navigate that.

"I think there's still a huge amount of fear in the wider community about what you can say about people who are a different race, religion, ethnicity, who identify differently to you. We're talking to people who have different identities about how to navigate that. It's been gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous.

"Fear stops people from engaging and having empathy," she adds. "I think, at the end of the day, we're all the same so having language to allow you to cross over difference and understand people from who you are, yeah, that's part of what we do."

Sonya Lennon on positive aging and celebrating her 50s

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