I LIKE Sundays to be very low-key and I try to make it my day for unwinding and spending time with the family. I try to get a bit of a lie-in but with four children it's not always possible. I'll head out to the shops for the breakfast makings and papers at around 11. I cook a big fry, it's the only day of the week that there's time for it. Then we usually head to the park for a game of football or to fly a kite. Our two older kids - Darragh, 12, and Elaine, 9 - are in a band with their friends Ben and Daniel and they would normally have rehearsals on Sunday afternoon.

These have been quite intense recently because they're competing in a talent competition on 'Dustin's Daily News' on The Den on RTE. Their next appearance is on Tuesday.

They headlined a show before Christmas and 200 people showed up - it was fantastic.

On Sunday evening we try to watch a movie or television. We all love the reality talent shows, even the two younger kids, Ronan, 6, and Eve, 15 months. Once in a blue moon we'll have a proper roast dinner. We pack such a lot in during the week that anything that seems like a lot of effort on a Sunday doesn't happen. If the weather's bad the kids might not even get out of their pyjamas.

I haven't had a lazy Sunday like that for a while though. Ciara and I are both drama teachers and we have a drama school, Arclight. We produce shows too, and at the moment we're in rehearsal for The Gingerbread Man, which will be at the Pavilion Theatre in Dun Laoghaire. I'm one of the panto dames, celebrity chefs called Ainsley and Harriet, and Ciara is the baddie, Farrah Fox, a biscuit tycoon.

We wrote the script with one of our students, Shona Cowley, who's 17 now. She had the original idea when she was 11 and she won a play-writing competition that we ran. We've worked with her to expand it and make it contemporary.

Shona plays Cinderella, who can't go to Wesley because she doesn't have the right clothes. A fairy godmother sorts her out.

There are 30 adult parts and at each performance we'll have 40 children in the cast. That means dozens of rehearsals with all the different casts. It would be a lot easier to just pick the 40 best students from our various classes and have them in every performance but we really believe that everyone should get a chance to experience what it's like being on a proper professional stage.

Arclight is emphatically not a stage school - there are plenty of those about.

What we're really interested in is helping kids to gain in confidence and self-esteem. And it sounds corny but the look of joy on the faces of those kids when the curtain comes down and they've achieved something that they'll remember for ever is pure magic.

The Gingerbread Man is at the Pavilion Theatre, Dun Laoghaire from 22-27 January.

Booking: 01 231 2929 Arclight Drama School, Cornelscourt: 01 282 3422