‘It is 100pc mental and a massive juggle’ — Tommy Bowe on parenting
The former rugby player chatsabout the ups and downs of raising his two children and how the discipline drilled into him as a sports star helps with live TV
“It does knock you sideways,” Tommy Bowe says, reflecting on parenthood. “Everybody tells you how tired you will be and how chaotic it is but you have no idea. Nothing can prepare you for how exhausting, how mental and how amazing it is.”
The former rugby star, who was capped for Ireland 69 times, and his wife, former Miss Wales Lucy Whitehouse, have two young children — Emma (5) and Jamie (2).
The couple first met in 2011 when Bowe was playing for Ospreys in Wales, and got married in 2015. They knew from the get-go that they wanted children.
“We were always keen to do it; I come from a close-knit family, we are tight and I always wanted to be a parent at some stage.”
Their daughter Emma arrived early, two weeks ahead of her due date in April 2017.
At the time, Bowe (38) was still playing rugby professionally. In March of 2017, a few weeks before his daughter was born, he fractured his leg during the last minute of a Six Nations match against Wales.
He knew as he was being stretchered off the pitch that he would never play for Ireland again. He underwent surgery and began an intense rehabilitation programme, and then became a dad.
“I had just got injured and was on crutches at the time, so I wasn’t much use to my wife,” says the Co Monaghan native.
“And you don’t get much paternity leave when you are playing rugby, it’s not really a thing. If you are playing you have to play the matches, you might get a week off. And at the time I was injured so I was having to go to rehab and trying to get back fitness.”
As a result, he says the period was fairly intense.
“I was trying to mix all that with a newborn. And Lucy’s parents live in Wales, so it was a lot of juggling,” he says.
“It is a chaotic period — everyone finds it chaotic. No matter how many times you have been through it, whether it’s your first or your fifth.”
Playing sport at a professional level requires a level of commitment that can sometimes jar with family life.
“It’s quite sad but you have to be quite selfish. There’s a match every weekend. You have to prepare if you want to be able to perform. There are sacrifices to be made… the guys who are playing the Six Nations are pretty much gone from the house for seven or eight weeks.”
The couple’s son, Jamie, arrived in 2020 as the country went into lockdown. However, like many parents, Bowe felt more confident in himself as a father.
“With your first when they’re crying, you can’t sleep. But when they do fall asleep, they’re silent and you still can’t sleep because you’re worried something is wrong. So you are always on high alert and full of panic. When the second baby comes along you realise… you can actually enjoy those 15 or 20 minutes [when they are asleep].”
I ask if the parent he imagined he would become is any different from the reality.
“Nothing can get you ready for some of the challenges. You might have this great view of what you want to be but when you’re having to negotiate with a two-year-old who doesn’t want to sit on the potty? There’s no negotiation. I thought I was stubborn — it’s a different level. There is no rationality,” he laughs.
Bowe formally retired from rugby in 2018 and pivoted into TV; he made a documentary about retiring, The End Game, began presenting stints on RTÉ travel show Getaways with Vogue Williams before landing the role of co-host on Ireland AM with Muireann O’Connell and Alan Hughes.
While nothing will replace the atmosphere of a match day, he says live television gives him a rush of adrenaline.
“Look, I will never recreate running out in the Six Nations or scoring a try against England over at Twickenham,” he says.
“You have to make peace that you’re never going to get that sort of buzz because that was my dream from the age of six. But you have to move on. I’m very lucky with live television. I’m not getting lumps knocked out of me but I’m still part of a team.”
Interviewing politicians or addressing subjects that he is unfamiliar with excites him.
“That gives me a real adrenaline rush and the heartbeat is going. Even just going live on television knowing that you have to be careful not to say the wrong thing and get in a lot of hot water. You have to be fully on the ball for three hours. It gives you an adrenaline rush, it’s not quite up there with rugby, but it’s not far off.”
Ireland AM requires a 4am start time. For many, waking in the wee hours day in and out would get pretty old, pretty quick, but Bowe doesn’t mind it.
That level of planning and discipline was “drilled into him for 15 years” as a sports star.
“If I have to get up at four or five in the morning, I have to get the right amount of sleep; I have to have my clothes laid out; I have my food in the fridge ready to go. I turn into a bit of a robot. When I talk to Muireann… she can’t get her head around it. So I think sports people are just wired a bit differently.”
Bowe is looking into a hectic few weeks; aside from Ireland AM he is also working on Six Nations coverage and has his own clothing line, XV Kings, to oversee.
Lucy works as a nurse, and with two young kids, crèche drop-offs and an ever-increasing number of extracurricular activities, there are a lot of logistics to work out.
“It’s a massive juggle for myself and my wife,” he says. “We have to have a shared calendar. I have to put in work commitments and home commitments and she will do likewise. We both just have to work around each other.
“It’s a compromise. It’s very much about trying to communicate as much as you can with your wife and trying to make sure that for work I can get my work done to the best of my ability — and vice versa for her.”
He adds: “I have Ireland AM and XV Kings and trying to get out to the factories — it’s really busy. My daughter just started Irish dancing. She does ballet and swimming. There are all these commitments. But anybody who’s a parent will know exactly what that is like. You want to do the best for your children and encourage them to get involved in extracurricular activities, and be able to enjoy time with their friends. But also, you know, you have to do the work to put the food on the table.”
Bowe has previously spoken about the pressure having children can put on relationships. Last year, on Ireland AM he said having daily arguments is part and parcel of married life when you have young kids. “When you are tired, you just get ratty and cranky about everything — who’s doing more work than the other? Somebody’s at home while you’re going off to work,” he said at the time.
He and his wife try and carve time out for one another, and are respectful of each other’s parenting styles.
“We do try to sit down and watch telly together,” he says. “Between myself and my wife, she probably is a disciplinarian. I’m the one who riles them up before bedtime because I’m playing too much and all of a sudden someone bumps their heads and it all ends in tears and it’s my fault. But I think we have a nice balance.”
Bowe is chatty and good-natured, talking openly over the phone as he shops for dog food for his ‘first baby’, the family pet Bonny.
He’s very easy-going, which may explain his popularity with viewers, and why he seems so unfazed when things go awry on air.
“I love it when stuff goes wrong,” he says. Bowe got a lot of stick last year when author Séamas O’Reilly appeared on the programme to discuss his book Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?, which deals with parental loss.
Bowe’s co-host Clare McKenna introduced O’Reilly, telling viewers he was “just five years old when he and his 10 siblings...”
At this point Bowe interjected with high-pitched incredulity exclaiming, “Ten siblings?!’” before McKenna concluded “lost their mum”.
The clip was widely shared on social media, was remixed into an electronic song, and even printed on greeting cards.
Tommy Bowe with Ireland AM co-hosts Muireann O'Connell and Alan Hughes. Photo: Brian McEvoy
“I actually didn’t realise I made a mistake,” he says. “I carried on with the interview as if nothing had happened. It was only when I saw it on social media later, and it shows the power of social media… I mean, I’ve had a lot worse, bigger cock-ups than that.”
He declines to give examples of those more significant on-air fumbles. Instead, he talks about recovering from them.
“Everything I get comes from rugby,” he says. “When I dropped the ball or if I missed a tackle in the first minute of a Six Nations match and my opposite went on to score a try underneath the post, I can’t worry about that for the rest of the game. I have to get on, and get back into the game and pretend as if nothing happened, or use that as motivation to try and play better. It is the same. I make lots of mistakes on air but you can’t let the whole show crumble to pieces.”
He thinks it’s a sign of a good presenter if you can roll with the punches. “[Sometimes] the cameras aren’t working and our cookers are broken. Or somebody has not turned up. To be able to deal with that and make it look [as if]... there’s absolutely nothing wrong. It’s a real sign you’re getting better at your job.”
As our conversation draws to a close he reflects on how fatherhood has changed him, and what he has learnt from his children.
“[The kids] put everything into perspective. They don’t really care if I mess up on the television or if I’ve missed out on an opportunity for a new business. They just are happy to see you and for you to give them your time. So my big thing is to try and be present and put my phone away.”
He is trying to embrace the pandemonium of parenting young kids while it lasts.
“We are so fortunate; the kids are young, they are such great fun, and they are happy. Everybody I talk to who has older kids says ‘Just try and enjoy it, enjoy the absolute mentalness of that age’. And it is 100pc mental. And there are moments that are just pure joy. I try to appreciate that as much as I can, whilst also tearing my hair out,” he laughs.
“No one can prepare you for how amazing it is. You might have 23 hours of absolute chaos but that one hour of gold, of pure joy, somehow makes it all absolutely worth it.”
Tommy Bowe presents Ireland AM, Ireland’s longest running breakfast TV show, airing seven days a week on Virgin Media One
