The Irish mammy is a formidable woman who spends all day cooking and believes her son is beyond reproach. Right? Wrong, writes Michael Kelly, who undertook this survey
There's a cliche about the Irish mammy that gets trotted out around Mother's Day each year. We are told that she is to be found in every kitchen in the land, ferrying food from stove to table; that she is fervently religious, belting out rosaries; that she has chronic the-sun-shines-out-of-my-son's-bottom-itis; and that she still lovingly irons creases into his underpants even though he's in his 30s.
It is the Irish mammy's fault, we are told, that the Irish man makes such a lousy husband, for it was she who overpampered him as a young Adonis. Mollycoddled, he goes out and finds a wife, from whom he naturally and understandably expects the same domestic excellence. Alas, she fails in this regard, leaving him feeling depressed and alone. Meanwhile, the wife is creeped out by the Irish man's intimacy with his mother. Cue date in the divorce courts. Wife is consigned to the dustheap, and the Irish man and his mammy reunite and live happily ever after.
What rubbish.
On the evidence of the men we have talked to, the Irish mammy either has gone Awol in her flowery smock or she never existed. None of the mothers discussed here fits that mould. If anything, they are far too interesting in their own right to be defined by fawning relationships with their sons. They are independent, talented and hugely influential. These are strong women. Matriarchs. Mates.
'Not many people can say that their mother was a nun'
DUNCAN STEWART Environmentalist and broadcaster
"My mother passed away 30 years ago. She was one of the original hippies, really eccentric. She started out as a film actor but broke a contract with Hollywood to join a convent in Co Cavan, which she left after three years. Not many people can say that their mother was a nun. She met my father and had six children. To say she was dramatic would be an understatement. We lived in a secluded house in the Wicklow Mountains before that was popular. We were like the von Trapps. She was very artistic and very prolific, really an exceptional person, although I didn't appreciate that at the time. She wrote 300 songs, of which I can still remember about 50. She wrote plays and books, too. The two sounds I recall from my childhood are a stream near our house and my mother playing piano, which she often did at 5am. At one stage she ran a restaurant on Chatham Street in Dublin, where all the artists and musicians would congregate. It was very bohemian. She was very helpful to people, the complete opposite of a snob.
"She would announce: 'We are not buying food any more. We are going to live off nature.' And we would all troop off to comb the beach or forage in the mountains for berries. We grew every type of vegetable and fruit imaginable, and she had goats, hens, ducks, turkeys, cows and pigs.
"She died of a heart attack at 63. It was a huge shock. She really was the centre of everything. My father was more practical. My father was in the Army, so he was away a lot. My mother would wander in the mountains composing music in her loneliness."
The final episode of Eco Eye is on RTÉ1 on Wednesday, March 21st
'I am the youngest, so I was a bit of a pet'
MICHAEL McDOWELL TD Tánaiste and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform
"My mother died in 2002. Her father was Eoin MacNeill, who was one of the founders of the Gaelic League and the Irish Volunteers. When she was two he was sentenced to life imprisonment, and he later became a minister in the Free State government. She met my father when she was a teenager. She studied architecture in college and practised it for about a year before they married. It was the done thing then for women to give up work. She had five children. I am the youngest, so I was a bit of a pet. My father had TB, so there were prolonged periods where she had to look after the family on her own.
"She was a very natural, independent-minded person. She wasn't prim - she would talk about anything from religion to sex to politics. There was always controversy at the dinner table: you were expected to have an opinion on things. My family was fundamentally Fine Gael. She would help me out at election time in my constituency office and was very supportive. I think she took great pride in all her children's achievements.
"She was very artistic, a beautiful painter and dressmaker. She made [ my wife] Niamh's wedding dress, for example. She was healthy up until the day she died, at 87 years of age. Actually, she attended another person's funeral that day and died later on, sitting watching TV at home. We miss her terribly. She was a great friend to us and our three boys.
RAY D'ARCY Broadcaster
"I can't speak highly enough of my mother. She's an amazing woman, and now I have my own child she has gone up in my estimation even more. There were nine of us, and she stayed at home until we were reared and then went to work in St Joseph's Academy. She's a very intelligent, articulate woman. She's from Kildare originally. My father was in the Army, and because he was frequently away, doing tours of duty, she was alone with us a lot of the time. I don't like the cliche of the Irish mammy. My mother wasn't like that at all - she wasn't smothering. I suppose it's hard to smother nine kids. We weren't mollycoddled - we were independent. Our house was like a hotel: there were always people coming and going.
"I think it was Madonna who said the best gift a mother can give is confidence. Well, that didn't really go in our house. We were always apologising for everything. The big sin to my mother was to be arrogant or to get above your station.
"Some people see this lack of confidence as a flaw; I see it as a good thing. She was always supportive of whatever we wanted to do, although she did cry when I told her I borrowed £200 to buy DJ gear. 'Neither a lender nor a borrower be' was her motto.
"She is in her late 60s and retired but still active in the community. She's out two or three nights a week. She's equally proud of all of us. I think she's slightly uncomfortable at times if I am in the paper or something. She said it took her an hour to get down the town when [ my daughter] Kate was born, with all the people stopping her."
'She had a wooden spoon and a torch. She used to come looking for us at night with that torch'
JOE DUFFY Broadcaster
"My father died in 1984, so my mother was really pivotal in our lives. I recognise now how much she did for us and how hard she had to work. She was a strict woman: she had a wooden spoon and a torch. She used to come looking for us at night with that torch. She still lives in the same house in Ballyfermot. She's 78 soon, but her own mother lived until she was 98, so there's longevity on her side. I see her about once a week - not as much as I'd like. She has her routine, the church nearby, which is important. She's very independent - still heads in and out of town.
"Your relationship with your mother changes over time. When I started calling her Mabel as opposed to Ma I knew I had grown up. That was last year. You have a more equal relationship, more like friends. When you have your own kids their granny becomes really important to them.
"She wouldn't be doing backflips down the road because I am on the radio. She would always be keen that you don't lose the run of yourself. Her philosophy is very simple. You are not better than anyone else or above anyone else. I think she is equally proud of all of us. My brother Aidan died in a car crash, and that was a terrible tragedy for her.
"I remember the conversation in our kitchen at home when I was talking about going to Trinity. It was a case of me moving from being an asset to the family finances to becoming a draw. That was a huge decision. But I remember her saying to my father: 'If Joseph wants to do it, let him do it.' "
'She was watching my brother play soccer once and roared at another player: "What are you doing? Pass it to my Charlie!" '
BILL HUGHES TV producer
"My mother will be 82 this year. She is originally from Borrisokane, in Co Tipperary, and married my father, who was a widower and already had two children. They had 11 children together. She ran the family business, which was a drapery store in Athy, Co Kildare. Due to ill health my father was a house husband: he ran the house and my mother ran the business. She retired when she was 75 years old and is now enjoying her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She is full of life, enjoys nothing more than a hand of cards and still bakes the best brown bread imaginable. She is a quintessential matriarch.
"We were always taught that if you had an interest in something you had to be passionate about it. She was obsessed with Tipp hurling and was the ultimate soccer mom. She was watching my brother play soccer once and roared at another player: 'What are you doing? Pass it to my Charlie!'
"We were all involved in the family business from a young age, so that's where we all learned to turn a buck. I was a troublesome child and was sent off to boarding school. We had one of those typical blow-outs when I was in my 30s which could have gone either way, and thankfully it resulted in us becoming friends. We talk regularly: I tell her my woes in business, and she tells me all the woes from elsewhere in the family. We try to be open and frank. It's not a benign relationship; it's fractious. My mother is a fervent, staunch Catholic, so she has had to reconcile the fact that I am openly gay with the views of the church."
Celebrity Jigs n' Reels returns to RTÉ1 on Sunday, April 1st
'If you had a graze she would pick you up and tell you to stop moaning. It did my rugby career no harm'
BRENT POPE Rugby analyst
"My mum's family originally came from Tipperary. She's a wonderful person, really great craic. A very intelligent lady. She has achieved a lot in life. She was recently inducted into the racing hall of fame in New Zealand and was the first female president of a racing club in Australasia. She is obsessed with horses; my brother and I always felt we would have been better off growing up if we were foals.
There was no nonsense with her: if you had a graze or a cut she would pick you up and tell you to stop moaning. That did my rugby career no harm. She came from a hard-working farming family and worked all of us hard, which was a good thing. Herself and Dad are coming to Ireland this year, so I look forward to that. It's quite emotional for me that I don't get to spend as much time with them any more. You do worry that you will get a phone call some night. I try not to think about that too much.
"A few years ago I dropped her off in a pub in Tipperary - she was hoping to meet some people. I had to leave her there in the pub because I had to work, so I basically left her perched up at an empty bar. I felt really bad about it. Then, years later, I met these guys from Tipp on the Lions tour and they said to me: 'Tell Helen we were asking for her.' I was thinking, how do these guys know my mother? They were telling me they met her in that pub, that she was up till 5am, the life and soul of the party. Doing the haka and everything. And there was me all worried about her."
Brent Pope will be in Rome this afternoon for RTÉ's coverage of Ireland's Six Nations fixture against Italy on RTÉ2 at 1pm
'For Irish mammies, their sons can do no wrong and their daughters can never do enough'
RUAIRÍ QUINN TD Labour Party spokesman on enterprise, trade and employment
"My mother, Julia Hoey, married my father, Malachi Quinn, in April 1936. He was the opinionated one, but she clearly had the determination that drove our family as we grew up. The 1930s was not a great time of security for young people, and my parents were no different to millions of others in Europe - they were forcibly relocated out of Newry with two infants in 1939 and arrived in Dublin with few friends and little knowledge of the city. My father ran a grocery business but would have loved to have been a history professor. My mother was a housewife who would have made a great entrepreneur. She had five sons and a daughter. She taught us that education was the ladder of liberation. As teenagers we knew the domestic rules: one, you studied hard and you got your exams; and, two, whatever else you did, you did not bring disgrace back home.
"Having said that, love was the abiding mood amid the discipline and the punishment for wrongdoing. There was no rancour when my actions were deemed by my mother to be offside - both sides knew what had to be done, even if either one of us did not like it.
"I think, for Irish mammies, their sons can do no wrong and their daughters can never do enough. My mother taught me to see good in everyone, to tolerate difference with a sense of humour and to realise that the telling of a good story might require more than just the bald facts. I think, like so many women back then, she was ahead of her time.
"She passed away a few years ago. I look at her granddaughters today and I can't help thinking about how much she would have relished the choices and opportunities that they have."