Menu
Sign In Search Podcasts Libraries Charts People & Topics Add Podcast API Blog Pricing
Podcast Image

The Claire Byrne Show

What Made Me? Mary Coughlan

13 May 2026

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.031 - 17.651 Ciara Kelly

Hi, Newstalk's Ciara Kelly here. Summer always feels like a fresh start. And for a lot of us, that fresh start begins at home. Ideas start bubbling away. Maybe it's a new bathroom, a new kitchen or a bigger renovation. But this is the moment when it all really starts to take shape. If you're thinking ahead, TileStyle is the place to begin.

0

17.971 - 27.962 Ciara Kelly

TileStyle has an incredible range of tiles, flooring and finishes. And they make the planning side far easier too. Their team can help you visualise your space with customised virtual designs...

0

27.942 - 50.22 Ciara Kelly

for kitchens and bathrooms so you can feel confident about your choices long before any work begins and it's a great time to start planning because the tile style summer sale is now on with 40% off all tiles in stock and incredible reductions on wood flooring bathrooms and fitted kitchens too it's a brilliant opportunity to get inspired make decisions early and take advantage of real savings while you're at it

0

53.93 - 67.85 Claire Byrne

The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance. Now I'm joined by jazz, blues and soul singer Mary Coughlin for What Made Me. You're very welcome, Mary. Good morning.

0

67.89 - 69.352 Mary Coughlan

Lovely to see you.

69.772 - 71.274 Claire Byrne

You're going to be busy again this summer.

71.294 - 74.779 Mary Coughlan

Ah, stop it, lads. I have gigs in my diary until next May.

75.4 - 77.143 Claire Byrne

UK, Scotland.

77.363 - 82.35 Mary Coughlan

UK, Scotland, yeah. Here, of course. Here, lots of going to the Olympia.

Chapter 2: What experiences shaped Mary Coughlan's early life?

173.827 - 193.774 Mary Coughlan

Shea Healy set up this thing called Sounds Promising and you had to send in a cassette of yourself singing two songs and we got picked. We came up to RTE, to this big studio in RTE and Gae Burn was walking by when they were mixing it and he said, who's that? And I said, it's a mother of three from Galway. And he said, can I pinch her for the Late Late Show?

0

194.715 - 203.996 Claire Byrne

And that was it. That was it? Yeah. Incredible. So it was really, I mean... Was that a life-changing moment? Oh, God, yeah. The Late Late Show, Gay Burn.

0

204.016 - 219.498 Mary Coughlan

The whole business has been life-changing for me. I mean, I left Galway with the three kids. I had left my husband, Denny, my first husband, and... with the three kids under six. What was I thinking? I put them into the car, a few plastic bags of clothes and came up to Dublin.

0

219.518 - 227.385 Claire Byrne

You see, you probably didn't know what you were letting yourself in for. You know, when you look back at things like that and you go, if I'd have known what was ahead of me, I wouldn't make it.

0

227.405 - 241.718 Mary Coughlan

Well, I don't know. I'm glad I did it though because I wrote a song a few years ago called In Another World, What Would I Have Done? Yeah. In any given situation, you know. And in another world, if you and I were still together, what would, you know, I had to leave, I think, to do it.

241.698 - 248.27 Claire Byrne

Yeah, and I don't, I'm not necessarily saying that, but I'm just saying if you know sometimes what the next phase is going to be.

248.751 - 249.873 Mary Coughlan

Oh, stop it.

249.893 - 256.384 Claire Byrne

Could you face into it is my thing. Not that you change your decision, but I think we're better off not knowing what's ahead of us sometimes.

256.404 - 269.646 Mary Coughlan

Yeah, well, I was 70 last week and I really had a bit of a horror, you know, I'd had a bit of a weird month before that. thinking about stuff, you know, like thinking, looking back on my life. I got very emotional and I decided I didn't want to party.

Chapter 3: How did Mary Coughlan's career begin on the Late Late Show?

529.746 - 533.63 Claire Byrne

And does it feel like that to you? Does it feel like there's a new depth?

0

533.79 - 535.111 Mary Coughlan

Yeah, I can feel it here.

0

535.151 - 536.573 Claire Byrne

Did you train at all?

0

536.593 - 555.037 Mary Coughlan

Never. I've never even done a warm up. Eric Visser worked with Eric for years. You know, we did the first album, first nine records together. He has Parkinson's now and he's very, he's not great at the minute. But he said, it seems every time I had a child, I dropped a tone.

0

556.759 - 558.021 Claire Byrne

It changes a little bit.

558.041 - 570.117 Mary Coughlan

Changed a bit, yeah. And it's deep now and I can feel it when I'm singing. like a vibration and not like I'm not a hippie. I used to be a hippie, but I can actually feel, you know, it's weird.

570.137 - 577.327 Claire Byrne

It's all still there. And the favorite genre for you of music to sing, do you have one or are you, you know, is it still rooted in the blues?

577.347 - 597.296 Mary Coughlan

No, I mean, I wrote most of the last two albums myself, which is great. I never had the confidence to write before. I've written a couple, but the last album is called Repeat Rewind. And when I stopped drinking all those years ago, I couldn't sleep at night. Mm hmm. And I used to count sheep and I couldn't ever see the sheep or see, you know, didn't really make sense to me.

597.757 - 604.068 Mary Coughlan

So one night I decided, I started thinking about Chantella and all of the people who lived on Ash Road.

Chapter 4: What challenges did Mary face as a mother and artist?

604.629 - 620.936 Mary Coughlan

And I would start at the bottom, then at Dooley's and I'd go all the way up to the top. Named them all in your mind. And then I started Mulvane's this side and go all the way down that side and name all the kids in all the houses. And then I'd wake up in the morning. So I wrote the song. It's about Chantella. It's about the nun, Sister Pius, that I was madly in love with.

0

621.637 - 641.865 Mary Coughlan

It's about playing on the streets. And your researcher asked me, what made me? And, you know, whatever. Chantella. Like all the hardship and all the abuse and all the drinking and everything. What stuck to me was kind of the rearing that we got on the street. We reared each other.

0

641.885 - 643.969 Ciara Kelly

I'm not saying that my parents didn't reare us.

0

643.989 - 653.164 Mary Coughlan

It shaped us. It shaped us. But we'd buy a record between us and go into each other's house once a week and really write down notes about it and stuff, you know.

0

653.144 - 660.253 Claire Byrne

Now, I have to go where I'm going to take Andrea Gilligan's time. I know the time goes quickly, but I am going to tell people that you're in Peacock's Bar and Lounge on the 12th of June.

660.313 - 663.818 Mary Coughlan

That's with Alton Conlon and we're doing our podcast. It's not a regular gig.

663.918 - 672.67 Claire Byrne

Courtney's Lucan, the 19th of June, then off to Castle Bar on the 1st of August. And then you're off in Leeds and Glasgow and all of those exciting places.

672.69 - 678.257 Mary Coughlan

I do work with Alton Conlon, I have to say that. And these are Alton gigs. We do a podcast together because you're not listening.

678.355 - 679.317 Claire Byrne

Mary, thank you so much.

Chapter 5: What inspired Mary Coughlan to write her latest songs?

679.397 - 695.335 Claire Byrne

And it's lovely to see you. It flew by. If you missed anything, go to the Go Loud app.

0
Comments

There are no comments yet.

Please log in to write the first comment.