Maura Derrane has said she is in a "lucky position" that she could pull back from working full-time on The Today show so she could prioritise family.
The Inis Mor native presents the show on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, while Sinead Kennedy partners with Daithi O Se the rest of the week.
Maura told the Irish Sunday Mirror: “I find burnout is a very real thing for everyone – men and women – but probably more women because we take on so much of the family and child-rearing responsibilities too.
“I suppose I was in a lucky position in that I could decide to work less.
“I would say to women if they are worried about being less of a person because they cut back on their career that you are the same person without a career.
“The career should be secondary to you, what happens if you are too caught up in your career and it is taken from you, or what happens when you retire?”
Maura no longer wants to be defined by her role in television after almost three decades on screen across RTE, TV3 and TG4.
After questioning her work and life away from her family, she came to the decision to ask RTE bosses about reducing her role.
Maura, who has two children with former Fine Gael TD husband John Deasy, said: “I
love what I do and my career in television has partly defined me since I was in my early 20s.
“It’s very hard not to think of myself not doing this so I weighed all of that up. I did wonder, what if they say no, what if it’s all or nothing, what will I do?
“Forget about Cal and forget about John, I asked, ‘Can I be me without being defined by what I do’ and I came to the decision that I could walk away.
“I would have understood if RTE said they couldn’t facilitate me because they needed the same person. I’m so happy though that they didn’t say that.”
Maura follows her instinct and advises against second-guessing yourself as that can end in disaster.
She said: “If you make a decision you’ve got to stick to it. This is almost like deja vu because when I got married in 2005 I was presenting Ireland AM and John was living in Dungarvan and I
was in Dublin; even though there was no child in the mix it was still difficult.
“I didn’t want to be getting up at 5am every morning and I decided to leave. Sometimes you have to step back to go forward.
“Again, it wasn’t an easy decision to make at that time. I did have a bit of a speed wobble after about six months wondering, ‘What have I done?’
“Then, all of a sudden, a TV series came from TG4 – a farm show – and within a year I got the afternoon show with RTE, so things happen for a reason. And right now this is happening for a reason too.”
- Read the full interview with exclusive new pictures in this month’s RSVP magazine – on shelves from Tuesday and available on the magazine’s app.
