We have seen comedian Katherine Lynch in various guises throughout the years, from singer Bernie Walsh to the slightly tragic Liz Hurley. Now, as one of five celebrities due to appear on RTÉ’s Operation Transformation, she’s getting ready to bare all on screen – as herself.

When Irish Country Living meets Katherine, she is wondering what on earth possessed her to take part.

“I really don’t know,” she muses, “I keep going back to the contract saying: ‘Are you for real? Can I get out of this now?’”

However, she admits that “too much of the good life” has led her to reassess her health choices – though the good life is no bad thing.

“We all want to have healthy relationships with our food, drink, friends, life and body, so the journey I want to go on is to have healthy relationships with all my surroundings,” she says.

“I have no no button. Last night I went to a bar to see my friend and he didn’t even have to ask twice if I wanted a glass of wine. We had three glasses of wine and that was our night. We talked for ages and hours and I don’t think that’s a problem – but I think the calorie intake is,” she adds.

Promoting positive body image – rather than shaming – is important to Katherine.

“I’m really into not body-shaming women, because we have enough issues with having to look at the Kardashians and consider that that is the proper body image – it’s all wrong,” adds Katherine. “The proper body image for me is feeling comfortable with yourself and liking yourself on a Saturday night when you go out in something new.”

Rural roots

Originally from Leitrim, her last diet-free day was the Mohill Fair Day on 22 August (“the biggest consumption day you can have in Co Leitrim”) before officially taking on the OT plan. She’s proud of her rural roots, though worries about community spirit declining in villages and towns across the country.

“People wanted less, and because they wanted less, they had more. Now people aren’t passionate about what they have – it’s more about what we can have or what we want,” she adds.

Katherine’s late father, Tom, worked as an agricultural adviser and was popular with local farmers.

“He loved farming. At his funeral, there were 2,000 people at it and I think half of them were farmers. I remember the beautiful, earthy hands, and the farmers saying my dad was a gentleman,” she says.

“When we go for a nice walk we remember him. He taught us how to appreciate the land.”

Starting early

He also sowed the seeds for her career, writing comedic sketches for a young Katherine to perform for Scór na nÓg. Indeed, with poet Patrick Kavanagh as a granduncle, she always had an interest in the arts.

“The house was always a hive of hilarity and Dad was the director of both. He wasn’t a very good director though, because we’d all just fall around the place laughing. Six-minute sketches took months to rehearse because we all had so much fun around them. That camaraderie has stayed with me,” she says.

Katherine moved to Dublin in 1991 after winning £4,000 in the local GAA lottery. Then a hairdresser, she started studying reflexology while also working in an antiques store.

It would take a few more years before she decided to follow her passion for acting, but her talent was honed in Dublin’s gay bars. Her performances led to her entering and winning Alternative Miss Ireland in 1998, where she met her writing partner, Warren Meyler

“It was great fun – Louis Walsh was a judge and Panti Bliss was the host. Then I won and I got catapulted into this mad world of comedy,” she says.

Katherine went on to star in her own show in Gubu Bar (now known as Panti Bar) for five years, where she was spotted by RTÉ producer Marion Cullen and Shay Healy.

Television debut

“They were doing a show called The Unbelievable Truth and they asked me if I’d put Bernie Walsh as a talking head on it. RTÉ loved it, which surprised everyone. From that, we got a pilot and from that we got a series.

“I’d go down to the local in Leitrim and they’d ask what was I doing with my life in Dublin, as a cabaret artist in a gay bar, and my mother would always defend me and say: ‘She knows damn right well what she’s doing.’ And I did.”

Along with Warren, Katherine created Wonder Women, Single Ladies and Wagons’ Den. They have their own production company, WAKA TV, which boasts the hugely successful Vogue Does … as part of its portfolio.

Katherine says it’s a tough time for comedy, especially with militant political correctness. However, she toured with You Don’t Bring Me Flowers last year, and is very much recognised for her characters – before we met, she was asked by a stranger to ring his mother as singer Bernie Walsh.

“They were women who hadn’t really been represented before, like a traveller woman, a closet lesbian and the real working-class Dub. Judgement in Ireland is huge and there is a lot that needs to be ironed out. There is still bigotry and people judging people and that all needs to stop, but humour is a powerful tool.”