When Cobh native Fionnuala Jones was growing up, she had her eye on many exciting future careers. Maybe she’d be an artist, or a guide dog trainer, or a pop star, or a writer. “I wrote a book in third class, and was so confident that it was going to be adapted into a film that I wrote a song to go on the soundtrack to it,” she laughs as she chats to the Irish Examiner from her living room in Dublin.
“Everyone needs to have that confidence.” But deep down, she always wanted to be on TV. “I love making people laugh, and I think that's what’s led me to this.
” ‘This’ is Jones’ (known as Fionnuala Jay to her 64,000 followers on Instagram and 31,000 on TikTok) very modern portfolio career of podcast host, contributor to The Six O’Clock Show on Virgin Media One, influencer and writer. The Cork funny woman has the sort of personality and dry wit that translates well online - not to mention her stunning Cobh accent. Now based in Dublin, where she lives with her fiancé (the pair are planning a 2025 wedding, of which more later), she was back in Cork recently for a live show of her podcast Flop Culture at the Triskel.
The podcast explores films, TV shows and albums that were considered flops in their time but deserve reassessment. Jones has always been good at capturing the pop culture zeitgeist, and made her name initially through her Instagram recaps of Love Island episodes. She and her friend Bríd Browne also co-presented the podcast Bandwagons (now on hia.
