SUNDAY for me, especially if I am working, is sacrosanct. We do a six day week on Fair City so when I'm working, Sunday is the only day off. It's largely spent with the dog, Chica, a Labrador cross who is blonde and beautiful. She got her name when a friend turned up from Spain and realised we were all calling her Girl for the want of anything better. Chica is Spanish for 'girl'.

I don't want to sound like I am either sad or that I treat her like a child, because I am not and I don't. But I do subscribe to the notion that dogs know us better than we know ourselves after years of being our faithful companions. She seems to second guess me all the time.

Chica and Sunday go together. She gets a big walk on a Wicklow beach. I would usually, weather dependent, head to Brittas. That's my contemplation time. I think of both the week ahead of me and the week I have just left behind me. I am not a religious person, but in spiritual terms I would describe myself as someone who interacts with both people and animals. I hope in the way I would like to be treated myself.

I don't see what is beyond this life but I am a believer in love. There is nothing to replace the feeling you get from being appreciated by another person. The sense of need that is reciprocated. To a degree that's also the same with animals. That to me is spiritual. You cannot explain why it is. Why that person, that animal, that relationship sustains me is a mystery. It jolts me into similar appreciation.

When I say I am not religious, I mean also that I do not have a faith. But I do very much distinguish between the two entities. When I was a kid we were brought up Catholics. My mother was religious, no craw thumper, but religious all the same. My father, technically, was an atheist. But it's not a word I ever heard him use. He didn't defer our religious education to my mother but he did leave it up to her. He was a gentle man, literally. But he didn't join in the Rosary. He did go to Church but that was because we were business people and it was important. I'll be shot for saying that. He's dead now and will forgive me.

His attitude gave me a healthy questioning.

I think it was Oscar Wilde who said if I know anything it's that I know nothing. Well, that's where I am coming from. Through my dad I began to realise that things were thrown at us without explanation. It was almost like you were actively encouraged, faith wise, in this country, not to question anything. That went against the grain, for him and now for me.

It's ironic because Malachy my character is an ex-priest. I played a cardinal, a vicar, a bishop and numerous priests in my career. I've even played the Pope! The biggest insult and compliment I got, one I have received more than once, was when I was asked if I ever was a priest myself? Answer: no.

My worry, as I got older, was the lack of questioning in religious life left ignorance dominant. Ignorance engenders fear. I saw the series of programmes on whether religion is the root of all evil. They aired on Channel Four. They were boring programmes but the premise was fascinating. Religion was, still is, at the root of a lot of war and evil.

I spent some years in Germany and while I do love this country, I am glad I went away from it for a while. I want to smack the powers that be when they go on about the wonderful economy.

When I look around at the poverty that is still present in our country it makes me angry. Spiritual expression is useless if you don't have a social conscience.

When my German friends came to visit, after I moved back here, they fell in love with the place, and the friendliness. But I maintained to them that it was because they were not staying, they were spending money and then leaving. I said if they came in force, to stay, particularly if they had no money, they would experience a different Ireland. Sadly, this has been borne out in the racism emigrants encounter.

My worry now is that we are way behind in all of this and we will not learn the lesson we should learn from other countries about ghettoising the new arrivals. It's frightening.

I found Catholicism judgemental. The worst thing you can be. I found the idea of a judgemental God did not fit with what they were trying to teach you about a loving God. It didn't make sense to me. When you dig deeper you realise most of religion is man made and they cherry pick. That applies not just to Catholicism.

So that's why I didn't explore any other religion, period. I came across other faiths, but maybe I was just too thick to express any further interest. I am laughing as I say this I hasten to add! But I don't feel the need to follow a religious practice. I am not patronising anyone when I say I don't need the crutch. I know faith is not that for everyone, but it can be for some.

What then is my support system? My psychological back up is the interconnection with other people. I have a couple of extremely good friends and close relationships. That is my support. Life is too short if you don't hold with the prospect of an afterlife. The friendships now have to mean something.

The people close to me allow me to air my dilemmas and share my joys. Sometimes I wish I had blind religious faith. But that is only when there is nobody around. I tend to try and figure out myself what I think on things before I throw things out there. I will think about a problem, give it way more weight than it needs, before I resolve it.

My friend, who is into astrology, tells me that is because I am a Libran and therefore a fence sitter. I think the fence is a good place, sometimes. Self praise is no praise, if I have one good trait it's that I am not judgemental at all.

That is what drew me away from Catholicism, there's too much of that, not in the individual practitioners, but in the concept. It doesn't tally. To be an unmarried mother, to be gay, to be anything different, was not encouraged. We need difference.

I do drive people bananas by sitting on the fence. But when I decide I think something, I think it, and I also do it.

I don't believe in 'instantly'.