‘My first memory is looking at my stomach aged six and thinking, I��m a fat person’: podcaster and Dublin Fringe performer Grace Mulvey

From hypnotic gastric bands to juice cleanses, Grace Mulvey and Conor Dowling have tried their fair share of weight-loss fads and three years ago the two friends teamed up to create a podcast on the topic. They talk internalised fatphobia, ‘skinny jabs’ and rejecting diet culture

Podcaster and comedian Grace Mulvey. Picture: Ruth Medjber

Aoife Barry

‘My first memory of myself is realising I was fat. Even though I was six years old, I remember looking at my stomach and thinking, ‘I’m a fat person.’ From then, I’ve constantly either been on a diet, been thinking about a diet, or been at dietitians, nutritionists...” As Irish writer, stand-up and actor Grace Mulvey recounts her long history with dieting, you might expect the ending to be: and then she went on her final diet, and here she is today, lighter and happier.

But there’s a twist in the tale, and it all started when London-based Mulvey met Wicklow filmmaker and screenwriter Conor Dowling at an improv class in 2016. “Every time we talked, we would end up talking about some crazy diet we had been on,” says Mulvey of their friendship. Later, during the pandemic, she struggled with binge-eating, and decided to do yet another diet. But something clicked in her.