RTE presenter Miriam O’Callaghan has seen her date night changed to a night on Skype – after her husband moved away.
The Prime Time host’s partner Steve Carson recently took up a new senior role with the BBC, which sees him based in Belfast and London.
And mum-of-eight Miriam has decided to work less for the sake of her kids during 2014 as she only sees Steve one day during the working week.
She said: “My New Year’s resolution is to cut back, cut back, cut back… but my New Year’s resolution hasn’t worked yet to cut back.
“We can deal with the long distance relationship. Because in theory, while we worked together in RTE, I never went near him in RTE.
“And after Prime Time I would only see him for about 10 minutes before I fall asleep. He Skypes the kids every night, so the seven-year-old thinks that’s really cool.
“The 12-year-old is at the cusp of saying, ‘Ha?’ I think they think Belfast is exciting. The seven-year-old thinks Belfast is like New York at the moment.”
Smile: With Westport school kids at the BT Young Scientist exhibition
And the 54-year-old – who was at the BT Young Scientist exhibition today – even wants to pre-record her Saturday Night With Miriam Show and cut its length.
She said: “In recent times I’ve had to be working every week of the summer bar two. And that’s a lot. And with Steve away, nothing is written in stone.
“If I could alter it a little bit so I wasn’t working all summer that would be great.
“I’ll probably definitely do something but hopefully not something than means I have to work 24/7, 365 days a year.
“And I always think it’s nice to change things, change formats, do something different. I’m not saying too much, because I haven’t even said this to my bosses in detail.”
