At Home With... Amanda Brunker

Social columnist, television/radio presenter, model, sometime actress and soon-to-be-best selling novelist (if things work out), Amanda Brunker certainly has a lot of strings to her bow. Her day job might be writing a popular social diary for the Sunday World, which she has done successfully for the past five years, but along the way she has managed to squeeze in a heap of extra-curricular activities, mainly involving broadcasting.
She regularly features on Gerry Ryan’s radio show, has appeared in panto, acted in RTE’s drama The Big Bow Wow and was one of the featured guests on the charity-radio station Inside 252. Her most recent high-profile TV slot saw her host RTE’s popular Dinner Party series while she has also featured on the travel show No Frontiers.
Then, of course, there was her little faux-pas on Eamon Dunphy's Newstalk radio show, which happened the day before we met but doesn't seem to have knocked Amanda out of her stride.

Home for the former Miss Ireland is an ex tram-worker’s cottage near the sea-front in Clontarf in North Dublin. She bought the house last year and is currently in the process of renovating it, as she explains.
“It was a two bedroomed cottage when I bought it - now it has one bedroom with a walk-in wardrobe and computer room. What I really like about the house is the ceilings which are 15 feet high - perfect for hanging my chandeliers. I’m doing it up in dribs and drabs. I got the wooden floors in first and then did the bathroom. Now that I’ve finally got the money together I’m waiting for my dad to help me fit the new kitchen.”
Brunker grew up in Finglas and went to school in Mount Temple – just down the road from her current abode and as everyone knows, birthplace of U2.
“This was my location of choice,” she says. “I was looking all around the northside but I never thought I’d be able to afford to live here. Clontarf is just perfect for me and the seafront is a fantastic facility to have on your doorstep – it’s almost like LA or Santa Monica here on a Sunday afternoon with everyone out on the promenade roller-blading, riding bikes and power-walking.”
Having shared a house in the past Brunker says that having her own place was always an ambition of hers. “I’ve always had this thing in the back of my mind that I had to have my own home before I was 30 and I’ve just made it,” she says. “The way I see it, if I put the money into the house now, it’ll be my pension. Even if I move on somewhere else in the future I’ll probably keep it and rent it out.”
When she’s not out socialising, gathering material for her weekly column or travelling to exotic far-away places, Brunker can be found at home on the couch in front of the TV.
“Television is evil but I watch it religiously, especially when I’m on it,” she laughs. “I need to stop myself from watching it so much. But as soon as I walk in the door I stick it on. Even though I swear I’m not going to sit down I usually do. I’m a typical girlie and I’ll watch shows like Will And Grace and re-runs of Sex And The City. I hate the soaps but I’ll still sit there watching them saying ‘this is shit’.”
Given her reputation for hosting top-notch TV dinner parties, is she the same in real life when it comes to having guests around?
“There’s always pink champagne in the fridge and I have people over quite often,” she says. “But it’s not a huge house so I can’t do sit down dinners, so it's usually a buffet or finger food. I had a big party a while ago and I ended up with more booze than I started out with so I’ll have to have another big blow-out soon just to get rid of it all.”
When Brunker has the time she says she listens to music though she says she’s not as fanatical about it as she used to be.
"I used to be big into The Cure and The Doors and I was a bit of a punk at one time,” she says. “But I have moved so many times that I’ve lost a lot of my vinyl collection including all my old Ramones records. But I’ve a few that I’ve held onto. I’ve a copy of October signed by Bono and an old single of theirs, ‘Another Day’ from 1979. My brother was a bass player in a band called Acker Bilk and he used to jam with Bono in the house.”
Though she prefers TV to watching DVDs which she thinks are “a waste of money", Brunker occasionally goes to the cinema.
“I tend to like strange movies like Magnolia and Fargo. I’ll be sitting there saying ‘look at that camera angle’. I thought Frances McDormand was brilliant in Fargo – in fact she’s one of my favourite actors. I actually met her once – she was over in Dublin for A Streetcar Named Desire at the Gate. I was going to the loo in the Westbury hotel and she got into the lift. I grunted something to her and she said ‘hi’ – she was a dote.”
Art is one of Brunker’s passions and she is slowly but surely acquiring a collection of original pieces.
“Damien Hirst came to my 30th birthday party and he did a drawing for me on a paper plate which was all I had at the time. It’s now hanging up on the wall. And I have a Rasher and a piece by my sister Linda Brunker who is a sculptor. Hopefully they’ll increase in value over the years and become good investments.”
Always hungry for new horizons Brunker’s latest project is writing fiction and she is working on her first novel, which she hopes to complete this year.
“It’s a chick-lit book loosely based on a character somewhat similar to myself - wink wink,” she laughs. “The working title is The Woman Who Loved Too Much, which has probably been used before so I’m not sure what it’ll eventually be called. It’s hard work, I aim to write 1,000 words a day but I usually get to 500. I’m told I have a publishing deal but we’ll have to see what happens.”