Una Healy was 12 when she first picked up a guitar. Now, over 20 years and a successful pop career later, the singer is indulging her passion for country and folk music through her new album.

“It’s called the Waiting Game and it is all original songs – music that I have written myself. I’m so happy to get it out there and share it with everyone,” she says.

The title is apt. Una started her music career as a singer-songwriter and performed across Ireland before relocating to the UK and joining The Saturdays, which was a hugely successful pop group. After going their separate ways in 2014, she decided it was time to focus on the music she loved.

“It was just myself and a guitar around the country for years and I’m very comfortable to be back doing the music I was doing,” she says.

“I came back hungrier than ever. I wanted to write songs that people could relate to but I needed to be at home and have time off and be with my children, gather my thoughts and put my thoughts into my music.

“For the past three years I’ve been writing this album and it’s been quite an intense time.

“Every time I hear a little melody, in my head I’m writing down all my feelings.”

Una’s six-year stint in The Saturdays resulted in 13 Top 10 singles and five Top 10 albums, but was not as creatively satisfying as her former life.

“I did write in The Saturdays, but not in the same way. We had 20 singles so we were going all the time. There was no rest period to focus and be creative and write,” she says.

“However, I did get a whole new dimension to myself as a performer and learned a whole new side of me that I never knew existed before the band and I wouldn’t swap that for anything.”

Musical family

Originally from Thurles, Co Tipperary, Una is from a musical family – her uncle is country singer Declan Nerney and he has supported her throughout her career.

“He’s been my mentor throughout my music career from the very beginning. Even as a little child, my cousins and I would go up to Longford and have little singing competitions where everyone won. My cousins are great singers as well, everyone could sing but I never really knew that singing was what I wanted to do until I was about 12 years old,” she says.

“My mum passed down her guitar to me and I started playing it and writing songs straight away. It was nothing that anyone forced me to do. It was just something I picked up and started doing. When I was 14 or 15, I wrote a song which won the Glinsk song contest, which was great encouragement for me as a songwriter.

“Declan heard the winning song and many of the ones I had written, and said he thought it was something I should really work on, as not everyone can write a song. He helped me and encouraged me and I’d always send my demos to him. He’s always been there for me, he still is to this day.”

We meet Una the day after her first headline gig in the Sugarclub in Dublin, which was attended by her former bandmates as well as her rugby player husband Ben Foden and five-year-old daughter Aoife Belle.

“It was a late one for Aoife, she slept all the way home but she loved it. I did a special dedication for her with one of my tracks called Staring at the Moon –it’s a song I wrote for her,” she smiles.

Based in the UK with her family, which also includes baby Tadhg (two), Una travels back and forth to Ireland and is sure that the kids will feel connected to her home country.

“I’ve been living in the UK for years but I’m always over and back so I’ve never felt like I’ve left. I feel like I’m sort of living in both at the moment,” she says.

“They are never going to lose their Irish touch. When the GAA is on, I’m always watching it and I was very happy when Tipperary won the All-Ireland. I’m a proud Tipp woman. Tadhg has a mini hurley. I’d love to see him play – Ben is fascinated by it all.”

With support from her family and confidence in her own music, Una is happy that she no longer has to play the waiting game.

“It’s so scary seeing your name on an album, not The Saturdays. It’s a bit of pressure but I feel like I’m in a good place in my life. I’m prepared for it now like I’ve never been before.”

Una’s album The Waiting Game is out now.