Laois woman to feature on RTE's Best Place to Be

A Laois native is set to feature alongside Baz Ashmawy as the second series of Best Place to Be returns to RTE One this Tuesday.

Baz and his team travelled to Brussels in Belgium to spend time with Cullohill native Anne Marie Delahunty. 

Daughter of the late Peadar and Christina(Tiny) who farmed in Cullohill, Anne Marie left Ireland in 1994 for a short term work opportunity. She fell for the country and a Flemish man and set up home in Brussels but still keeps Laois close to her heart. 

Anne Marie studied Chemical Engineering at UCD before taking up a role with Proctor and Gamble in Nenagh, Co Tipperary. From there the company invited her to travel to work in the company’s headquarters in Brussels for a two year work placement. That was in 1994. She fell for the country and a Flemish man and never returned home.

She and her husband Chris, who is from Antwerp, have built a life in the suburbs of Brussels with their three daughters. A new life in Belgium gave Anne Marie the opportunity to reinvent herself, changing careers from her original role as a project manager to a successful interior designer with a host of English speaking clients and her own company, Delahunty Interiors. Anne Marie loves Belgium and the life it has given her but remains strongly connected to her childhood home in Laois.

Anne Marie didn’t find it hard to settle into life in Belgium. “Brussels is a very special kind of very unique place because there are so many international people living here. It is very cosmopolitan. It is very easy to assimilate into life here because of that international nature of the city,” she explained. 

“There’s a big Irish community here. Even though I have lots of friends from different countries my closest friends are still Irish,” she said. 

Anne Marie loves living in Brussels but she also loves coming home to Laois. She regularly returns to Ireland with her husband and her three daughters, Lexie who is 20 and twins, Elisabeth and Sarah, who are aged 17.  

“I am still very close to everyone at home. I am very close to my cousins and friends still,” she explained.  

Having worked at Proctor and Gamble for eight years in Belgium, Anne Marie took the brave step to return to study before setting up her own business. The move provided her with the freedom to choose her own work schedule which gave her the work life balance she had always wanted. 

An only child, Anne Marie  inherited  her family home in Cullohill and she returns there often with her family.

She said “home is  home no matter what and I have such good memories of my childhood in Cullohill so I love coming home.” 

“I am very fortunate to be able to return as often as I like with my family so it is wonderful really. It is our second home really,” Anne Marie  said.

“We have been coming home every summer since they were babies. I come over for six weeks every summer and then we  come home at Christmas and Easter as well, so they get a good dose of Ireland every summer,” she said. 

“I think that has really helped them to love Ireland and really enjoy being there,” Anne Marie said.

Anne Marie  said the girls really enjoy Ireland because it is so different to living in Brussels.  

“They feel very much at home and they all speak with Irish accents. Baz was making that comment that he couldn’t believe they had Irish accents,” she remarked.

Anne Marie has the best of both worlds and she enjoys them equally. “I like having my two lives as it were. I love coming back to Brussels,” she said.   

Anne Marie  was contacted by the team at ‘Best Place to Be’ because they came across her business website www.delahuntyinteriors.com online. From there, calls were exchanged before Baz and a crew of five arrived in Brussels to spend two days with Anne Marie and her family. 

“They were fantastic. I have to say, it was a great experience. We had such a laugh for the two days. They made you feel very much at ease and very comfortable,” Anne Marie said. 

She said that while she had been nervous, Baz and the team put her at ease to such a degree that she forgot the cameras were rolling at times. 

Anne Marie is a member of a cycling group, Brussels Wheelers and they had a cycle and met up with Baz and his team afterwards, she recalled.“It was a fun experience and it was fun to do it,” she said.

Pictured above: Anne Marie and family in Brussels

Anne Marie isn’t able to get RTE in Belgium but she said the production team had sent her a copy of the show that can only be watched when it comes on air in Ireland. 

She plans to watch it with family and friends and says her cousins and friends at home will also be tuned in.  

The second series of Best Place to Be can be watched this Tuesday, September 3 at 7pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player.