It has been a dramatic year for RTÉ correspondent, Cathy Halloran, from being diagnosed with cancer to taking early retirement. But then her life is one of many unexpected moments. Donal O'Donoghue meets her.
Cathy Halloran’s overriding emotion on the eve of her early retirement from RTÉ is immediate and definite. "Relief!" she says.
Initially, I understood her to mean that after 38 years with the national broadcaster, the journalist is happy to cash in her chips and move on. In short, the former Midwest correspondent has been there, done that, and now has other fish to fry.
But her relief embraces a bigger picture. It’s the relief of someone who got the all-clear after being diagnosed with breast cancer last year. It’s the relief that her partner, diagnosed with cancer six months before her, is also in remission. It’s the gratitude of a woman who became a mother at the age of 43. And it’s the pragmatism of someone long aware of the ticking clock and how all can change in an instant.
We meet in Easter week at the RTÉ studio in Limerick city. It takes a while to find the building, also home to Lyric FM. "It’s down there under a worn-out sign," says a street cleaner.
Inside, Cathy Halloran gives me a whistlestop tour before we go to her office. In one corner of the room are eight bulging refuse sacks. "My scripts from down the years," she says. "Those scripts are what I’m most proud of during my time with RTÉ. And there will be more bags before I finally leave."
She finished on May 2. "I chose that date because my mother, Carmel, was 39 years dead on that day," she says. "A friend recently came across a photograph of my mother from when she was nursing in England. I burst out crying when I saw that picture of a beautiful, confident young nurse and decided then that my last day of work would be Mum’s 39th anniversary."
Cathy Halloran exudes energy, like someone in a hurry to go places and get things done. She talks with a similar urgency. "If you are diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, it focuses the mind," she says of March 19, 2024, the day she was told she has cancer. "I feel good now. I don’t feel 64, more like early 50s. And apart from the cancer diagnosis, I’ve been healthy. Time is the most precious thing, and with my leaving of RTÉ, I’m no longer tied to the tyranny of time, deadline after deadline. Now it’s time to set my own deadlines."
Family is her focus. She lives in the city with her partner, Nicky Woulfe, and their 20-year-old son, John Michael. Six months before her cancer news, Nicky was diagnosed with cancer – both have now got the all-clear and their prognoses are positive – but their worlds have shifted as have their priorities, shaped by recent events and decisions.
"The biggest challenge was, do I tell John Michael?" she says of her diagnosis. "He started college in 2023, Nicky got cancer that October and within six months, cancer had visited us both. So, with John Michael, I decided to wait until I knew more: I didn’t want to burst his bubble. But he was wondering why I had been up and down to Cork. I eventually told him then about the cancer diagnosis and the visits to Breast Check.
"He just asked me: "Mum, will you get better?’ And I said: 'Absolutely!’ He didn’t ask me any more questions. So that’s my cancer story. But I was determined to go back to work, and I did in May 2024, just in time for the Limerick mayoral election and local elections. In many ways, work was therapy for me."
Halloran, who grew up in the south Dublin suburb of Rathfarnham, is the eldest of four. "Bossy boots," she says of her childhood self. "I was an organiser. I’m still the same. My son thinks that I’m totally OCD about keeping the house tidy."
Her father, Danno (John), worked as a news editor in RTÉ. "We grew up listening to the news," she says, adding that her plan was to be a teacher or a journalist. She repeated her Leaving Certificate to get enough points for Law, but by then was already working for The Farmer magazine and the die was cast.
"The first story I did was about cows grazing in the Phoenix Park in Dublin. My job was to find out how and why they were there. I still have great respect for farmers because they are among the most honest people you can meet and will rarely bullsh*t you."
By the time she started in RTÉ in 1987, Halloran had been working for The Connacht Tribune for four years. "The Connacht Tribune was the making of me," she says. "After four years there, I’d done just about everything: courts, politics, human interest stories, funny stories and the rest." Her father had recently retired from RTÉ when she joined the newsroom (her subsequent stories would include the Beef Tribunal), but her mother, who died from cancer at the age of 52, never got to see her work for the national broadcaster.
"I was just 24 when Mam died," she says. "Years later, it would be a big deal when I outlived my mother, saying to my siblings on my 52nd birthday, ‘I’m now the age that Mam was when she died’. I suppose one regret is that she never got to see me work in RTÉ."
In 1993, she became the Midwest correspondent and moved to Limerick. "My first big story was the murder of Imelda Riney, her son Liam and Father Joe Walsh by Brendan O’Donnell," she says of a shocking tragedy that convulsed the country.
"I was in Limerick from December 1993, and that happened in April 1994. When the bodies were found in the forest in Clare, I did a live report that evening on the nine o'clock bulletin. I was filthy dirty from the forest, caked in earth. I brushed my hair, put on a bit of lipstick and borrowed a navy jacket so that I’d look half decent."
Other stories too, not least the gangland feud that terrorised Limerick at the beginning of the century, with the Armed Response Unit on the streets and the killing of innocent people.
On her office wall is a photograph of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe, shot dead by the Provisional IRA in Adare in 1996. On a shelf are official photographs of President Mary Robinson’s state visits to New Zealand and India, which Halloran covered for RTÉ.
"There’s himself," she says, showing me a picture of her son. "I do it all for him. Can I tell you why he’s called John Michael? My father was John, as is my brother, and Nicky’s father was called Michael, as was his brother, who died from cancer at the age of 18. We wanted to remember all those people with our son’s name. John Michael is a fine young fellow, quiet, not like his mother! One of the big things I had to learn as a parent is that your children are not you, they are themselves."
Halloran believes that her son was a gift. "I was 43 when I had John Michael," she says in a near-whisper. "I waited so long for him, and then, the next thing, he arrived. Right through my 30s, I wanted to have a child, but I was also so happy with my nieces and nephews. And the next thing, didn't it happen!"
So, what did motherhood bring into her life? "Anxiety," she quips. "Joy, of course, and mostly gratitude. I was so grateful for him to arrive, but I never knew anxiety until John Michael was born. He was so sick in the first three months that I thought he might die. That filled me with fear and the reality of a child getting ill. But he has been great ever since. I was also juggling with the job. Without Nicky’s help, I couldn’t have done it; he did a lot of parenting. But we did it together."
She knew Nicky Woulfe long before they became an item. "He used to be in and out of the old RTÉ studio back in the day," she says, "and I was there with the big hair and mini-skirt and the lipstick. He asked, 'Who’s your one?’ We later met in a pub, and it went from there.
"Now here’s a story that you can make of what you will. My mother, a woman of strong religious faith, had great devotion to St Anthony. I have faith too and pray a bit, even if I only go to church on the big occasions. Anyway, 21 years ago, St Anthony’s relic was on display in Carlow Cathedral. I drove there to say a prayer in memory of my mother. All I said when I put my hand on the relic was: ‘St Anthony, help me find my way’. I was 42 years old. I started dating Nicky, and a year later, I was pregnant. I was feeling tired and a friend said to me, ‘Are you pregnant by any chance?’"
In less than two years, Cathy Halloran’s life flipped 360 degrees. "I was a single woman in my early 40s, and now all had changed. My biggest worry was ‘How do I manage the job with the baby?’ It’s all about how you adapt. In any case, there was no choice but to get on with it. I was a geriatric mother, but John Michael keeps me young. And there are still days I look at him and think, ‘You’re here! You arrived!’
"In a way, I think he’s a gift from my mother; she sent him..I waited for him, and he’s a joy. He’s not me, and you have to accept that. Music was always being played in the house when he was growing up. Now John Michael is huge into music and movies and is studying law, politics and economics."
Cathy and Nicky are not married. "We must and we will," she says.
For two music lovers, have they a song that is their theme tune? "The song that we love and the one that we will play when we get married is Bonnie Raitt’s In the Nick of Time." When I say that I’m not sure if I know the song, she sings the first verse (she has a fine singing voice): ‘A friend of mine, she cries at night/And she calls me on the phone/Sees babies everywhere she goes/And she wants one of her own.’
"It’s about time running out, and it is so apt for myself and Nicky. We met each other in the nick of time, and in the nick of time we had our child. Nicky’s two older children, Lloyd and Zoe (from a previous relationship), are 10 and 16 years older than John Michael, and they adore him."
So, what does Cathy Halloran do next? There are plans to travel: Europe, Chicago, the world, visits to museums and galleries. University, something she never did, is an itch.
What does she take from her years in RTÉ? "My memories, I suppose, and I’m proud of the scripts I wrote," she says. "People say to me that there’s a book in me. I’ve thought about it." She points to an empty shelf on the wall of her office. "There were 31 diaries on that shelf before I boxed them up the other day. Those diaries are now among my precious possessions, wherein I not only wrote about the story of the day but also how I was feeling about it. Sometimes I look back and think, ‘What happened then?’ but those diaries are my memory bank. They are also part of my own story."
