Once upon a time, Kathryn Thomas was urged by her grandmother to put herself forward for the Rose of Tralee. But the fledgling broadcaster had other worlds to explore. Donal O'Donoghue gets her story.
"Up to the year that she died, my nana, Margaret, mourned the fact that neither me nor my sister took on board her suggestion of putting ourselves forward for the Carlow Rose," says Kathryn Thomas. "She must have asked us every day for 10 years."
So, what was the broadcaster’s reason for not vying to wear the Carlow sash in the Dome?
"I was travelling with the TV show No Frontiers, and so I was away having adventures elsewhere. And now, as co-host of the Rose, I realise that it’s all about adventure. People can be very dismissive of the festival, calling it The Lovely Girls competition, but I’ve always seen it as something inherently Irish and tribal. That was what I got from my nana, a proud Kerrywoman, who told us we could also be the Kerry Rose if not the Carlow one."
Thomas has just wrapped her breakfast show (The Morning Show) on Q102 and is still in studio when we connect via Zoom. She gives me a peek at her shiny surroundings, with futuristic panels of switches and buttons.
"It looks a bit like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise," she says. "And it’s very, very bright, which is what I need at six o’clock in the morning when I come in: the brighter it is, the brighter I sound. I’m well used to the early starts as a mother to a 7-year-old (Ellie) and 3-year-old (Grace), but a Monday to Friday job is something I’ve never had in my 46 years. My greatest fear before I started was how it would affect the family, but that was totally unfounded. I’m back by lunchtime and I have the whole afternoon with my girls."
Thomas, Carlow-born, lives in Dublin with her husband, Pádraig, their two girls and two dogs, Peter and Poppy.
From her fledgling broadcasting days – hosting No Frontiers – she has, not unlike her Rose co-host, been spinning any number of plates to keep the show on the road and the moolah coming in. She has worked on radio, usually as a super sub across umpteen RTÉ shows, and as a TV presenter, most prominently with Operation Transformation and most recently, The Skinny Jab Revolution.
"I always thought that I was someone who thrived on organised chaos," she says. "As a freelancer, you don’t live by routine, and very often you don’t know what is coming down the track. But that’s always how I’ve lived my life."
A recent interview with Thomas sported the headline: 'People just assume that when you’re on the TV, you’re loaded."
Do they? "I think people understand now that not everyone who works in TV or radio are loaded," she says. "Now, I’m very privileged. I love the work that I do and have worked consistently in media since the age of 19. I got a lot of lucky breaks, but you’ve also got to make your luck work. And there’s always something more to learn. Even here, manning this desk here in Q102 is a new adventure, another string to the bow."
As was signing up to co-host the Rose of Tralee in 2023. "We’re not afraid to take the piss out of each other," she says of Ó Se. "Usually, we agree on the interviews with each Rose, who will interview whom, but occasionally we fight over them. And afterwards, once the dust is settled, we have a handshake."
Earlier this year, Thomas presented The Skinny Jab Revolution, a two-part documentary on weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic. "Making it reinforced for me the importance of education on the benefits of exercise and healthy eating," she says. "I still say that’s what Operation Transformation did (the RTÉ show was cancelled last year amid criticism that it contributed to body shaming), shining a light on healthy living through healthy eating and exercise."
She says there’s unlikely to be a sequel to The Skinny Jab Revolution. "After Operation Transformation and The Skinny Jab, I closed the door on those shows, but it was important for me to do (Skinny Jab), chronicling how much the industry had changed and is changing. And the legacy of Operation Transformation is, I believe, incredible even if it did get a lot of criticism towards the end."
The broadcaster has a new podcast coming next month, and there are two projects "in development" with RTÉ.
She cannot divulge much on the latter, but the podcast will be about women in their mid-life on those issues that most impact them, but which "they feel that they can’t say aloud". Until now. Thomas says she’s also on that journey.
"I had a lot to unlearn about that subject," she says of The Skinny Jab Revolution. "You can be very set in your ways, but it’s also very good to listen to other perspectives and ask ourselves is there something we need to unlearn."
And many years on, does she have any regrets that she didn’t take her nana’s suggestion for the Rose? "I nearly grabbed the sash off the Carlow Rose when I met her last year," she says. Of course, she’s joking. I think.
