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The Meath comedian on being bitten by the entertainment bug as a child, overcoming anorexia, and her new book and podcast
I grew up in Kilbeg, outside the village of Nobber, Co Meath . My father is a dairy farmer, so I have a very rural background.
I was I blessed by going to primary school in Kilbeg with a group of friends that are still friends to this day. From an early age, I was always interested in comedy and making videos. We had a project in school with Fís, which is run by IADT, where it gave technology to schools that are considered more rural, or that might not have as much access. In fifth class we made a short film.
I loved that whole experience and got a camcorder then from Santa. I was just forever making short films and they were always comedy. That’s where I got bitten by the bug. Looking back, I don’t know when I would have been exposed to that had that not happened in primary school.
When I was 15, I won the national under-18 film festival, Fresh Film Festival in Limerick . Winners got to represent their film in other film festivals. So I went out to South Korea . What was wild was when we landed in Seoul, the first poster in the airport was of Pierce Brosnan saying “Welcome to Seoul”.
With the short film, it was bizarre to me that there were lines in it with “feck” and “shite”, and I saw the subtitles put up on it in Korean and I thought, “how do you translate feck? ” But it was so important to me, I’ve always felt a responsibility to represent Ireland well abroad. In secondary school, I struggled with anorexia.
I came from a small primary school, there were only 11 people in our class, and to move to secondary school, which had about 400 students, that jump was huge for me. I struggled with making friends and being separated from the friends I’d had. I was overweight as a child and I felt like that was impacting why people weren’t making friends with me, and I was bullied for my weight.
I just thought if I lost weight, that would help things. Unfortunately, then it spiralled out of control. It was no longer a diet, it was an eating disorder. Looking back, and from what I’ve learned of anorexia, I think that has links to OCD and perfectionism and control.
That impacted my studies. I wanted to succeed and excel in every subject, and it would scare me if I wasn’t doing well. I studied film and broadcasting in DIT. I struggled a lot with self-harm and depression in my early 20s.
Coming out of college, my identity was again really uncertain and that really affected me. A lot of my friends from home had gone back home after college. Some of my college friends had taken the year visa after college to go to America. The friends that did go to America had the best time, and I was thinking maybe I should have gone.
But I was not mentally at my best at that time and I think moving abroad would have been a big struggle. It was only when I was in hospital when I was 23 after I’d had a suicide attempt that I was given this diagnosis for Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder . It was a relief to me to feel like there’s actually a description for everything I have been experiencing. The thing with EUPD is you struggle with emotions.
It is an inability to regulate emotions. So there are extreme highs and lows. People who have EUPD can struggle with self-identity, with self-harm, with relationships. There’s an ability to have it essentially in remission, that you’ve kind of overcome it, and that the symptoms aren’t as intense or if they do bubble up, you know how to deal with them.
I think that’s where I am now. I have written a book called The Irish Art of It’ll be Grand, which I would describe as a comedic exploration of the Irish outlook on life, as well as personal stories and my own struggles. There are so many examples of the Irish being a unique people, and their outlook to life in general.
But I felt it would be a disservice if I didn’t include the fact that it isn’t always grand. I wanted to include stories where, from my own personal experience, that is not the case. That when things get serious, the Irish get serious too. The struggle was the audiobook, because I was like, “Oh God, I have to read out all these things”.
I do a podcast with Kevin McGahern called The Lovely Show. He’s from Cavan and I’m from Meath, and we have an understanding of the same rural upbringing. There’s a certain sneer that people can have in those counties, and the audience love that. A lot of people contact us listening in from Australia, New Zealand, and it just reminds them of home and the things they are missing.
We call our fans the humjobbers, and they love that term as well for some reason. In conversation with Niamh Browne. The Irish Art of It’ll be Grand by Justine Stafford is published by Wildfire. If you have been affected by the issues raised in this article you can seek help from Bodywhys, the Eating Disorders Association of Ireland, at bodywhys.ie or freephone the Samaritans at 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org .
Contact information for a range of mental health supports is available at mentalhealthireland.ie/get-support .
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