Anna Geary on baby number two and the kindness of strangers

RTÉ News​

7 hours ago

Broadcaster, author, pundit and content creator – Anna Geary is a perfect example of a successful career post-retirement from sport. She talks to Claire O'Mahony about how she achieved this, her recent baby news and what we can expect from her new series of Supercharged.
"It's just nice that it's out there now," says Anna Geary, about the recent news of her pregnancy, which she announced on social media. "Actually, I think the hardest part for a lot of people is the figuring out when to tell people, how to tell them. There's no hard and fast way."
While the public is only now catching up, life behind the scenes has been quietly busy for some time. Alongside preparing for a second child for her and husband Kevin Sexton, and keeping up with her toddler, Ronan (almost 2) who's happily "ruling the roost," Anna Geary is also stepping into Miriam O'Callaghan's Sunday morning slot on RTÉ Radio One with her health and well-being show, Supercharged.
With plenty happening both at home and on air, Geary is approaching it all with her usual warmth and energy – and no shortage of early starts. "My son does not like to sleep in," she laughs. "He is in a FOMO place in his life where he doesn't want to miss out. Therefore, he is up at the crack of dawn and it is all go."
From All-Ireland winning Cork camogie captain, to broadcaster, personal trainer, pundit and author of the best-selling book, Anna's Game Plan, she has carved out a multifaceted career grounded in a deep connection with audiences. After hanging up her boots, she quickly became a familiar face on our screens, from Ireland's Fittest Family and Dancing with the Stars and Up for the Match. On radio, she's found her wheelhouse with Supercharged, now in its sixth season.
"Moving into Miriam's house", as Anna describes it, is an opportunity for a new audience to hear Supercharged, which usually goes out at 6pm on Sunday evenings. "I know myself, we'd have the radio on Sunday mornings in the background, making breakfast and getting ready for the day. It's a different group of people listening to the radio on a Sunday morning, compared to the Sunday evening listenership," she notes.
What matters to her is that Supercharged offers something more honest and expansive than the standard health and well-being shows. "When people think about health and well-being, the things that come to mind are fitness, healthy eating and sleep, all the traditional topics. What we've tried to do with Supercharged is really open people up to what health and well-being really is about," she says.
"It extends far beyond fitness and food and sleep. It's things like combating loneliness, talking about sex or the various forms of contraception, and prostate cancer. We've talked about STIs, and we've talked about anabolic steroid use. What we really like to do is open up conversations about what may previously have been seen as a taboo topic."
When it comes to a new Sunday morning audience, Anna, who lives in Kildare, says: "That traditionally can be family time and people are maybe getting ready to go out for the day. So we can explore giving people ideas and inspiration of what to do for the next few weeks, places to go, things to try. People are going to have to occupy their kids and themselves, so that everybody doesn't crack up inside the house and row with each other! That's as much about our health and well-being as the right thing to eat, because we all need to make sure that we can be tolerant of each other."
In a space often crowded with quick fixes and conflicting advice, Supercharged aims to offer honest conversations, expert insight and real-life stories that cut through the noise.
"I remember being on Today with Maura and Dáithí a few months back, discussing this viral trend of sticking an actual piece of garlic up your nose. I don't know what it was meant to do – improve sinus health; get rid of a cold or something bananas. There were so many videos of younger people online doing this, and medical experts were coming out saying 'This is really dangerous. Please don't do this.' But because these people saw it online and it had 2 million views, then they think it must be right, let's do it. That is the danger."
She adds: "With everything I say, my line is simple: look for the evidence. Because if the evidence isn't there, it's not there for a reason. It's not tried and tested. Don't be the guinea pig."
Her social media presence is strong; on Instagram she has a significant reach with 169K followers. "I think I'm very lucky that the community of people that I seem to connect with online are, by and large, extremely supportive, and they're very encouraging; inspiring at times. I actually said to my husband last week, when we announced our baby news, just the kindness of strangers blows me away all the time," she says.
She has always tried to keep things authentic and real online, within reason. "We always hear about social media that there's a veneer and there's a gloss and it's all curated. That is so true because while I try and show the good and the bad, the highs and the lows, and I try and be as genuine as I can, I'm still not going to be coming on Instagram and talking about a row I've just had with my husband or that my son has been particularly unruly. And I'm not going to say for a second that I don't use the Paris filter on occasions when I've had little sleep. It just makes you look that little bit fresher."
Anna's online content is a blend of fitness, food, health, well-being and life in general, and it's often humorous. "I could spend hours recording a fitness video, editing it, putting it up and it mightn't get good traction," she says.
"But then I'll put something up about how I put cardboard boxes at the door to see how long it takes for one of us to put them out, and then we step over them for two weeks, because neither of us want to be the person to concede and actually break up the boxes and put them in the recycling. People relate to that because they're probably in the middle of doing it themselves. I think it's a nice route, to give people a bit of lightness in their day, because we're all going through something."
Also in the mix is the 13th season of Ireland's Fittest Family, which she's currently filming ahead of its autumn broadcast. "Oh, wait until people find out what's happening in Ireland's Fittest Family! No, I'm not going to be the person to let the cat out of the bag because I'll absolutely be taken down by the production team. But what I will say is never before has what is about to happen, happen on the show. Let me tell you, as a coach, I was more shocked than anybody. There are big changes, big twists, you're going to see a changed format, new locations. Oh my God! It's going to completely shake things up."
She was on Up for the Match this year and continues to work in camogie punditry. "The camogie is something I feel such a privilege to be involved in as a pundit. I retired in 2015, so a decade later, to be still working with The Sunday Game and as an analyst is amazing. It's funny because I'm working with women that I would have banged off in the field when we were all playing against each other."
Her fellow pundit, Wexford camogie player Ursula Jacob, is one such person. "She would have been my nemesis and now we get on great, and we're great pals. It's like we're moving through life almost together too: we retired at the same time; we experienced similar success in All-Ireland with club and county. She recently had her second child and now I'm pregnant with mine. I always say to people that aren't into sport and don't get it, and who say, 'What's the big deal?' that it's about bringing people together, even long after you finish playing."
Just when you think life couldn't get any more full-on for the broadcaster, she's also covering for Oliver Callan in August. "It's an opportunity for me to learn a different show, work with different producers and try and step out of my comfort zone. I've covered for Ray [D'Arcy] in the past and Ray's show is different to Oliver's show and Supercharged is different to both.
"It's all the time just trying to add that skillset and to learn as much as you can. But everyone knows when you're doing something new for the first time, it's daunting and it's nerve-wracking. Yeah, it's exciting and you'll make plenty of mistakes even though you don't want to, and that's the nature of life and anything in the world of media. But it's also the nature of just trying something new and I'm really looking forward to it."
As we wrap up our chat, Anna reflects on her career path, and the importance of perspective. "I never thought 10 years on that I'd be doing this, or TV and radio shows. Sometimes you have to say to yourself, think back to a time when all you want is what you have right now."
It's a sentiment that clearly resonates with her, especially in the midst of such a busy chapter."Because we all move the goalpost, we all get something or achieve a goal and go, OK, next. Next. So, just remind yourself of how far you've come too, because we're all very hard on ourselves, I think."