Dublin actress Kiara Noonan has spoken about returning to Fair City after taking time off to care for her son with leukaemia, and what their lives are like now.
Having first joined the soap in 2015 as Nikki Duff, recent years had seen her character sidelined for storylines, a move that ended up being a blessing in disguise, if for the most worrying of reasons.
As she stepped back from Fair City, her son Oscar was diagnosed with leukaemia, and she was able to devote her time to caring for him.
Fast forward to 2023, and she was ready and able to get back to work, but with reservations.
‘I was like, why did I say yes? I don’t have time for this. And I just said, you know what, if it’s meant to be, it will be,’ she told The Sun.
At the time Oscar was still going through treatment, but back in school, he’s now in the maintenance portion of his care. She also had concerns about her younger children.
‘I was always worried that they would become what I call glass children, you know, children that you see through because having a sick child, obviously, that’s where most of our priority goes.’
‘So I’ve always made sure to spend individual time with each child,’ she shared.
Despite her fears, her return to the series lined up with her mum duties, and she still has the time to be present at sports days and spend one-on-one time with each child, but she also has something for herself.
Now she gets to be the mum on the school run but also the working mum.
‘I get to show the kids, no matter how hard life is, you can still get this time for yourself. It’s hard; you have to work around it, you have to make lots of plans to do it.
‘But you can still do what you want to do, even when life is really, really hard,’ she told the site.
