Living With Lucy takes a look at the life of a reporter as the host moves in with our crime editor.
The TV presenter was stopped on Talbot Street in Dublin’s inner-city – close to our offices – as she trudged along with her luggage ahead of spending a weekend with Nicola for her show Living With Lucy.
“Ah Jaysus, there’s Lucy Kennedy, look at her! Are you on a fashion shoot,” asked one onlooker, to which Lucy said she wasn’t.
He then asked: “Are you staying over with anyone nice this weekend? Who is it, can you reveal it?”
When told it was Nicola, he cheered: “Ah no way, we all love her.”
His pal added: “That means everybody will be watching it!”.
Lucy was given a tour of our offices at Independent House, where she met among others Editor Brian Farrell and our Deputy Editor Niall Donald, who is co-host on Nicola’s hugely popular Crime World podcast.
Nicola took Lucy on a walk around Dublin’s city centre
.
Nicola explained how Crime World’s scoop of landing an interview with notoriously-shy, gangland figure Gerry ‘The Monk’ was a ground-breaking coup.
“So, we did an interview with The Monk, and it was huge. Now, we’re going to tell a story properly, and focus on how he nearly got elected, and try and delve into that,” she reveals.
Nicola and Lucy venture back out onto Talbot Street, heading for nearby Corinthians Boxing Club, with which The Monk is closely associated.
“Nicola, I love watching you. I’m only after telling them, I’m after watching the one there,” another passerby on the street interjects after recognising our reporter.
He tells her that the criminal she had recently featured on her podcast was a “baddie”.
“Yeah, he’s a f**king p***k. Give me a gun and I’ll do him,” he says.
Nicola tells Lucy that many of the people she encounters near the office have sad stories.
Lucy spent several days shadowing Nicola
News in 90 Seconds – Saturday November 2
“It is actually tragic, because most of them are addicts, you know what I mean. A lot of them will approach you, have a hit of whatever they’re taking, their tablets, or something like that,” she remarks.
At the boxing club, Nicola is met with endearment of a different kind when the coaches take a shine to her and insist she looks “sexy in her cowboy boots”.
“I’d fancy her. You’re not bad yourself,” one tells Lucy.
They explain how Hutch was once treasurer of the club and still pops in from time to time, with the kids getting somewhat starstruck.
They hope Nicola’s visit will help give a better image of the inner city.
“Just to publicise what we were talking about. The inner city never gets good publicity, about the way we’re treating the kids, the kids coming down here,” says one of the club members.
“Everything Nicola writes about is crime in the inner city. Now there’s a good thing to write about (the club)”.
Another points out: “My opinion is after changing on her since the interview with Gerard,” adding “but if she writes anything bad about this stuff now, there’ll be trouble.”
Lucy and Nicola catch up with Eamon Dunphy
Nicola brings Lucy to her Dublin home of 20 years, which she shares with her adult daughters and adorable pet Jack Russell dog Paddy.
Over the course of a few days Lucy meets a variety of people who’ve been important in Nicola’s life.
One is Joey O’Callaghan, the central character in Nicola’s best-selling book and award-winning podcast The Witness, and whose life story is the subject of a new film production.
Joey became the youngest person to enter the State witness programme when, aged just 18, his testimony helped put gangsters Brian Kenny and Thomas Hinchon behind bars for life for the murder of Jonathan O’Reilly
Joey, who still had to hide his identity and is naturally fearful about one of the two thugs who threatened him getting out of prison soon, is full of praise for the way Nicola handled him.
“I’ll always be grateful for everything Nicola’s done for me, I hold her up there close to my family, with my mam and that because she’s the only person that when I couldn’t help myself helped me, and there was nothing in it for her,” he confirms.
Lucy and Nicola also meet Eamon Dunphy, who reveals he encouraged Nicola into the world of podcasting back in 2018, after he fronted his successful podcast series, The Stand.
“We headhunted her because she was so good. She’s the best journalist in her field. And the stories of the Kinahans and all the crime stories are addictive,” he raves.
Nicola and Lucy also enjoy drinks with Sunday World magazine editor Caoimhe Young, who recalls how Nicola once forced her to follow a notorious fraudster through the streets of Limerick after she has spotted the criminal while driving through the city.
The pair also meet up with former Sunday World celebrity journalist Amanda Brunker, who describes how she, Nicola and our features writer Deirdre Reynolds were stalked by convicted rapist Mark McAnaw.
“I have never seen anybody as out of control as he was in custody. He is so dangerous,” admits Nicola.
She also opens up about how she tracked down Christy Kinahan senior in Marbella back in 2013, and the incident was one of the few times she genuinely feared for her safety.
“We were looking for Christy Kinahan senior. We had really good information., We had about six months gathering the intel before we went,” she recalls.
“But I don’t know whether we realised we were actually going into the heart of one of the biggest cartels in the world.
“I don’t think we also probably realised how dangerous they were.
“We probably then saw them as a Dublin gang, you know which was a slight naivety.”
She tells an open-mouthed Lucy how she and her team got closer to the belly of the beast.
“This particular night we got a tip that he was in the port. We went down and sure enough he was there,” she elaborates.
“He had gone for sushi. We had undercover cameras on him. We had literally got him like he had almost liked they’d kissed the ring. And it showed what he’d become. That actually he was the Godfather.
“That was a huge success. And we were sitting down, having a drink, congratulating ourselves. We’d got Christy Kinahan senior.”
Then alarm bells started going off.
“The next thing, one of the guys who was with us, came back to the table. He just said ‘you’ve got to leave here now and you’ve gotta walk different directions’,” she remembers.
“We didn’t even blink. We just walked out the door and I went back to the villa.
“I was like, ‘what happened?’. And the guy said ‘well I was in the loo and I heard this guy on the phone’.
“And he said ‘Nicola Tallant’s here, get the lads down here now’.
“So, this guy had spotted me, and I had gone in for a little bit of backup. No they probably would’ve, I dunno what…”
Lucy asks if she feared she might be kidnapped, or worse.
“Maybe, actually, when you think of what they have done since, you just wouldn’t know,” she reflects.
“But that time, I realised, ‘this is the end of me doing this type of work’ because everybody was put in danger because they recognised me.
- Living With Lucy airs tonight on Virgin Media One at 9pm.