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🇮🇪 Ireland /Culture & Society

Evanne Ní Chuilinn: “Dad is at my brother’s grave most days and keeps the candle on it lit”

From Irish Times · () English

Translated from English and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Interview Named sources Context piece
  • Evanne Ní Chuilinn recalls growing up in Kilkenny and describes the daily candle her family keeps lit in memory of her brother Cormac, who died by suicide.
  • She discusses adoption, raising three children and encouraging them to engage with the Irish language.
  • Ní Chuilinn says women now make up about half of anchors, reporters and broadcasters in Irish sports media, although further progress remains necessary.

Evanne Ní Chuilinn keeps a candle burning in her front hall for her brother Cormac, who died by suicide after struggling with mental health and addiction. At her parents’ home, a lantern burns on his grave too. “Dad is at my brother’s grave most days and keeps the candle on it lit,” she says.

Ní Chuilinn, now a senator, children’s author and former sports broadcaster, grew up in Kilkenny. She remembers the city as large enough to offer sport, drama, music, chess and filmmaking, yet small enough not to feel overwhelming. Her only regret about Kilkenny, she says, is that she no longer lives there.

Dad is at my brother’s grave most days and keeps the candle on it lit.

· Evanne Ní ChuilinnShe describes how her father commemorates her brother Cormac, who died by suicide.

She and Cormac were both adopted, while her younger sister Áine was born unexpectedly after their parents had believed they could not have children. Ní Chuilinn says grief after suicide feels different and that people often do not know what to say. Her eldest child, Séimí, was 18 months old when Cormac died and has no real memory of him, although photographs keep his presence in the family.

Women’s sport is still having a moment, but I do think there needs to be a conscious decision for people to engage with it, because otherwise it will fall off the radar.

· Evanne Ní ChuilinnShe argues that continued public engagement remains important for women’s sport.

Ní Chuilinn has three children, Séimí, Peigí and Teidí, and is trying to foster their love of Irish without forcing it. Her youngest has begun naíonra, while Séimí attends a Gaeilcholáiste. She studied Irish at master’s level at NUIG before joining a Dublin production company making a programme for TG4.

She also reflects on her broadcasting career, which began in 2004. Women’s sport, she says, still needs deliberate public engagement or it could lose momentum. Yet she considers it encouraging that anchors, reporters and broadcasters in Ireland are now roughly evenly divided between men and women, giving younger women and girls a visible career path.

I’m grateful social media didn’t exist in my early career. I don’t know if I would have had the fortitude to deal with the criticism.

· Evanne Ní ChuilinnShe reflects on the pressures she might have faced as a young broadcaster.
About this summary

Originally published by Irish Times in English. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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