DEARBHLA MESCAL HAS spoken about her difficulties with cancer and attempts to find enjoyment in her life as she embarked on the road to recovery.
Dearbhla, who is the mother of actor Paul Mescal and singer Nell Mescal, has published a new book titled Finding Joy: Capturing the Beauty of Ordinary Life in 28 Days, which tracks her attempts finding moments of happiness during her illness.
The retired garda discovered she had a type of blood cancer in 2022 and is now in remission after receiving a stem cell transplant.
Appearing on The Late Late Show last night on RTÉ One, Dearbhla told host Patrick Kielty about her struggles to tell her children – Paul, Donnacha and Nell – about her illness.
“It’s normal, most of us are living this normal life and it just happens. Cancer is one of those things that just happens to us and I was incredibly, incredibly lucky,” she said.
After Paul had been nominated for an Oscar for his role in Aftersun in 2023, and invited Dearbhla as his plus one to the ceremony, she called having to ask her doctor whether she would be able to make the trip to Los Angeles.
“I said to him, ‘Listen, something has happened. Paul has asked me to be his plus one at the Oscars – can I go or will I be well enough to go?’,” Dearbhla said.
In response, her doctor told her: “You will go to the ball.”
“He was wonderful,” Dearbhla added.
Elsewhere, Dearbhla has continued the book tour with an appearance alongside Davina McCall on the UK presenster’s Begin Again podcast.
She told McCall about her own realisation that she was putting aside her own life unnecessarily when she could have been finding time for more happiness.
The critical turning point came while she was standing with a fellow parent at the side of a pitch, at one of her children’s matches, as they wondered when would it be their “time” in their lives.
“Filling my cup was becoming urgent,” Dearhbla told the podcast, explaining that their lives had become “chaotically” busy.
I needed to find something, all the matches you’re at, or all the wins that your children get, that’s their business. What was filling my cup? And my life was very, very busy, like most people, I was living and working.
Overall, the 57-year-old said that the conversation turned out to be crucial for how she would try to live her life.
“I did feel I had a voice, I did feel that I wasn’t necessarily being heard in my job, I wasn’t being heard in the life that I was living,” she said.
