Spending time away from family during filming, I think, for every working mum is always difficult. But it has to be done; there's no way round it you've just got to do it.

I'm not a football fan, and not remotely interested in it.

True Dare Kiss' is a gothic drama about a highly dysfunctional Mancunian family who, after 20 years, reconvene for the funeral of their father. I wanted to play Phil because I really liked the character, and there is an element of mystery about her - which I can't reveal.

There's still, dare I say it, a cultural propaganda against the Irish, that we are, as women, 'feisty.' I hate that word.

There's a difference between loneliness and solitude. You pursue solitude, I think. But loneliness is a completely different isolating thing.

I just love being in the middle of nowhere.

Yeah, I talk to everyone. I think that's the secret, you know. Keep it friendly, keep it warm. People just want to connect, don't they, at the end of the day?

I'm a terrible cook but I wish I wasn't.

David Attenborough's 'Life' series is phenomenal. He's a wonderful modern soothsayer.

I take the kids horse riding every weekend at Quob Stables - the people there are lovely.

I'd much rather go for a long walk than spend an hour in the gym.

Since I was 15 I've lived in fear that I'd never work again.

I've no desire to be away from my family for 16 hours a day.

I'm obviously slightly ill, because there is a burning desire to be perfect in me. It's probably the Catholic, or the ex-Catholic in me.

I don't want to be known as 'oh, Dervla, when she's on stage she's very good but she's terribly dreary', or 'another heavy night with Kirwan.'

I am concerned that there's a cavalier attitude to the Irish Peace Process. What poor memories some have; I remember only too well the bag searches, the bomb scares and deaths. As they say, history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) runs in my family, as do other mental health problems.

I was pregnant with my first child and so gloriously happy. I felt fecund and powerful.

I don't have a great relationship with food.

I am very scatty, I don't follow things through, I forget things. I am not perfect.

When I look at a magazine and I see Kate Winslet, I will buy it because Kate lends it a sense of achievement: she is brilliant, sexy, a mother.

Growing up, I wanted blond hair.

I didn't grow up reading magazines; I was very much in an environment where that would have been deemed trivial, frivolous.

My favourite designers are Stella McCartney, Balenciaga, Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel and Givenchy, but I wish I had loads of money to spend on them.