Dublin Rose Suad Mooge: "As a child, I wasn’t looking at [the Rose of Tralee] thinking, ‘That could be me’ – because they looked nothing like me"

“It’s layers of moist chocolate cake, whipped mascarpone cream, fudge brownie and milk chocolate ganache with lots and lots of chocolate sauce.”

Suad Mooge is making Team Hot Press drool with her description of the Choco Loco fresh cake in a can, which she bakes to order in her South Dublin home. That’s when she’s not working as a full-time medical scientist, running marathons, playing football, mentoring young kids, walking catwalks and getting ready to represent Dublin from August 14-18 at the Rose of Tralee.

And that’s just a snapshot of what the Sligo-born, Dublin-raised 25-year old gets up to.

“I bought the machine seven or eight months ago but, being a perfectionist who overthinks projects, didn’t do anything with it until earlier this year when I thought, ‘Go on, just launch it!” Suad laughs. “I did a few trial and error recipes, perfected them, did up a menu and launched at instagram.com/cakdup.ie.

“Once baked, they’re straight away vacuum-sealed which makes them as fresh as possible. I’m taking orders now via-social media and then, when I’ve got my licensing, insurance and HSE approval sorted, will be in shops.”

Before moving to her current abode in the ‘burbs, Suad was a proud Dublin 24 resident.

“We were in Tallaght for a good twenty-four years,” she resumes. “My dad came over from Somalia in 1994. He was studying pharmaceutical science at Trinity and then he transferred over and finished his degree in Sligo. My mum came to Ireland in ’98 with my oldest brother and sister who were born in Somalia. The last three kids, including me, were born in Dublin and Sligo.”

Reflecting further on her Tallaght childhood, Suad says that, “It was great craic and a melting pot of different cultures. Children played on the streets as opposed to now when they’re indoors with their iPads. We played football and organised dance flash mobs on the streets. There’d be twenty of us jumping around the place having fun. It was great because everyone was looking out for each other.”

Suad got her first taste of playing the beautiful game in 2018 when she signed up for the Sport Against Racism Ireland (SARI) Hijabs And Hat-Tricks programme.

“I’d seen them on RTÉ in 2014 when FIFA lifted the full-blown ban on wearing headscarves,” she recalls. “SARI went ahead and formed the girls’ group, Hijab And Hat-Tricks, which is now Diverse FC.

“I was 18, rocked up by myself and slowly crept my way on to the pitch: ‘Hi, I’m here to play football!’ It was my first time because we never had it in my secondary school, which was the Presentation College in Terenure. I did basketball there and long-distance running but we never had a football team.”

Given – cue ancient Sultans Of Ping/Roy Keane reference – a ball and a yard of grass, how did Suad get on?

“Really well! I started at right-wing but now I’ve gone back to midfield. Sometimes I’ll go into defence and I dabble in goal, so I’m a bit of everything! It varies from week to week, but we’ve about 40 girls in all and get a good turnout for training, tournaments and friendly matches.”

Is she saddened that France last year banned the hijab?

“It’s ridiculous,” she states. “Obviously they’ve hidden it under the guise of all religious pieces [of clothing] but it’s mainly a dig at the Sikh community and the Muslim community.”

How would Suad describe her own personal relationship with the hijab?

“It’s just showing who I am without saying anything,” she responds. “It’s a representation of myself first and foremost, but also of my religion. I love that people know I’m a Muslim just by seeing me with the hijab. Also, I’m quite into fashion and like to find different ways to incorporate my values and morals into it. I definitely love it and find it very empowering. And, yeah, I’m just grateful and proud to wear my hijab and say I’m a Muslim without actually saying I’m a Muslim.”

Suad’s sporting talents extend to kung fu.

“I’ve always wanted to do one of the mixed martial arts and just fell into it,” she smiles. “The form I do is very self-defensive. If someone’s attacking you, you might use an elbow to the face to throw them off balance – and give yourself a chance to run!

“I really want to go to China and do shaolin training with the monks. You know the wooden sticks? They proper hit it against your core and your back. It’s intense kung fu training.”

Has she ever been around someone who’s gone on to become an elite athlete?

“Rhasidat Adeleke and her sister, Latifah, both went to the same primary and secondary school as me,” Suad reveals. “Especially at the Presentation, when we went to meetings like Santry and whatnot, Rhasidat was in a league of her own. She’s just so focused, determined and talented. She’s been in America a lot but Latifah is still part of our friend group.”

I assume being from Tallaght that Suad is a diehard Shamrock Rovers supporter.

“I’m very neutral,” is the diplomatic Rose reply. “I’ve been with my team to watch a few games at Tallaght Stadium and there’s always a great buzz down there.”

Did she get to Dalymount for the Bohs vs. Palestine women’s team game?

“No, I was in work that day! There was a group going down but I couldn’t make it. Sport is such a universal language. Put people on a pitch who’ve never met before, give them a football and everybody gets along. The one thing they understand is football. It’s a very powerful, robust and sharable tool. It’s so easy to teach and talk to people through sport, even if there’s a language barrier.”

MEDICAL SCIENTIST GIGS

Sadly, the tolerance and sense of belonging which Suad experienced as a kid in Tallaght is no longer necessarily the norm for young people of colour.

“When I was growing up, people were very tolerant,” she explains. “We had no issues but there weren’t as many immigrants in the country then. Now that there’s been a massive influx it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s how you really feel!’ With the political climate and everything, the air is very heavy.

“We’ve regressed since COVID in particular,” Suad continues. “On one hand, a lot of people came out of it cherishing their life and time more, which is why you’ve seen such a surge in things like run clubs and third spaces that benefit the community. On the flipside, you’ve people who have more ignorance and hatred in their hearts and, because of the likes of Trump, have become more emboldened in expressing their opinions. Then there’s the whole manosphere thing.

“Saying, ‘Oh, I haven’t met many people of colour or different cultures’ isn’t an excuse. Regardless of what you have or haven’t been exposed to, just be accepting of people.”

As a SARI mentor of six years standing, Suad gets to help kids who are being subjected to racist abuse and other forms of bullying.

“We do a lot of workshops with them around things like discrimination. They tell us their little stories – ‘People call me this, people call me that.’ There’s a lot of name-calling which makes them sad, but we give them a safe space to share their experiences and try to build them up. One of the most important things we say to them is ‘Stick up for each other’.”

As you’ve probably gleaned from her cake in a can business, Suad is an ardent foodie who has some tips for people wanting to sample some traditional Somali grub.

“My mum says I carry all of Dublin in my stomach,” she laughs again. “When I’m cooking it’s mainly traditional Somali food. We have a lot of pasta and Bolognese because of the Italian connection – Italy colonised Somalia – but we’ve made it our own. We use a lot more herbs and spices. When I want someone else to do the cooking, I go to Dorset Street where there are three Somali restaurants. At the top of Dorset Street is Le Gazin and, taking a left towards the Spire, there’s Marka Cadey. They have two buildings; a woman’s side and a men’s side. Then there’s Daalo on North Frederick Street. They do a slow-cooked lamb shank that falls off the bone when you look at it. It comes with rice that’s nice and cumin-y.”

I’m drooling again.

Whenever time permits, Suad likes to trace other dishes like Isbeeso with Pasta and Rice with Chicken Suqaar back to source. Can she paint us a picture of Somalia?

“It’s nice going back and just enjoying the family, the fresh fruit, the sun and everything like that. It’s a bit more conservative there; they have different norms and a way of life. You can’t just enforce a western way of life over there. It’s a nice breakaway from everything here.

“You’re Somali obviously, but at the same time they see you as Irish. Over here, they see you as Somali so you’re kind of torn between the two!”

When not administering elbows to the face and generally living out her Karate Kid fantasies – “I watched all the original films and was really sad when the actor playing Mr. Miyagi died,” she rues – Suad has been donning her running shoes.

“I did the London Marathon in April and have the Dublin one coming up in October,” she reveals. “The buzz in London was amazing, especially as I hadn’t trained and was doing it more for vibes. I tried running in Somalia in January but couldn’t breathe because of the oxygen. No wonder Ethiopian and Kenyan athletes do so well when they run the London Marathon because they’re training at altitude. Then when I came back it was almost straight into Ramadan, so I really wasn’t prepared.”

The scandalous lack of footie aside, did Suad enjoy her time at the Presentation?

“Best days of my life!” she shoots back. “Was I academic? Er… actually, yeah!”

Was the Leaving Cert a headwrecker or was she quietly confident?

“It’s a lot of pressure and me and my friends collectively overdid it,” Suad admits. “Looking back now I’m like, ‘Why did we do those endless days and all-nighters studying?!’ One of my friends actually passed out at the bus stop on the way to her Leaving Cert. We were all looking around the exam hall thinking, ‘Where is she, where is she?’ and afterwards found out she was in hospital. They took it all into consideration though and she passed.

“When you’re in the Leaving Cert mindset, the pressure’s coming from yourself, your school, your family and your friends. It has to change in terms of telling kids, ‘It’s fine, there are so many more options out there.’”

Does Suad remember how many points she got?

“God, no!”

They were however of sufficient number for her to go to TU Dublin and get a Bachelor’s Degree in Clinical/Medical Laboratory Science/Research And Allied Professions and then land successive medical scientist gigs in St. James’, Tallaght University Hospital and the Beacon.

FOR THE HA-HAS

Can Suad explain to an idiot like me what that entails?

“When you go to hospital and get a sample taken from you, it goes down to the labs and we’re the ones who test it,” she says. “I work in Histology, which is the study of tissue. If you’ve ever gotten a biopsy on a mole or a skin tag or anything like that, it comes down to us. If you have surgery and they take something out, it comes down to us. Kidneys, intestines, everything.

“When we get it, we process it and put it in different chemicals like alcohol to fix it and preserve it in its living state, as if it’s still in your body. We’ll take a tiny slice of, say, a kidney and put it through an overnight machine that exposes it to all these different chemicals. The product that comes out of it is this tissue which we put into a little wax mould. Using another machine called a microtome, we cut a very thin section off it, put it onto a microscope slide, stain it with different chemicals, and see what’s going on.”

And that concludes your comprehensive DIY guide to Histology, something you definitely wouldn’t get in the RTE Guide!

She’s obviously not squeamish...

“The samples – intestines or stomach for example – can sometimes be a bit smelly but you get used to it!”

Whilst at TU, Suad was an active member of the university’s Islamic Society.

“There were a lot of members,” she notes. “It was a community for the Muslims in the college. We’d get together for Friday prayers and have lectures in the evening on different topics. We had a prayer room and during Ramadan if somebody needed to break their fast, there was space for them to do it.”

Denise Chaila told me a few years ago that, growing up, she only saw people who looked like her on Irish TV when there was a famine appeal. Did Suad have the same experience?

“For sure, 100%!” she nods. “I’ve been asked, ‘Watching it as a child, did you see yourself as a Rose?’ and have said, ‘No, it’s hard to see yourself when you’re not being represented. I wasn’t looking at them thinking, ‘That could be me’ because they looked nothing like me.’ Now when I’m on the TV I hope that (a) My makeup’s okay and (b) Younger girls are going to be looking at me thinking, ‘I could do that, it could me.’ It’s all about representation.”

So if it wasn’t on TV, where was Suad seeing herself as a young girl?

“My family back home when I visited Somalia,” she says. “It’s only in the past ten years that you’ve seen more media representation of people of colour. You didn’t see it when I was growing up.

“Denise Chaila has been massive. She’s saying, ‘I’m African and I’m Irish, I’m Zambian and I’m from Limerick.’ I remember her  sister playing us Denise’s songs at school and thinking ‘Amazing!’ We were at the Hot Press History In The Making  50th birthday gig in 3Arena to support her and had an amazing time!”

I’m delighted to hear it. Lest Dáithí Ó Sé gets the wrong impression and challenges her about it in August, Suad was a Rose Of Tralee fan growing up.

“Yeah, I watched it for the ha-has with my mam and my family,” she confirms. “We’d be admiring the dresses and the performance pieces. So, yeah, I was definitely a fan.”

I’ve never heard the expression ‘for the ha-has’ before and from hereon in will be using it as frequently as possible.

Asked whether she was cajoled into entering the Dublin Rose or did it as a dare, Suad says, “No, it was my idea. It came up for me as a sponsored ad. I said, ‘Oh, that’s cute, I might go for it’ and then put the application on the back burner. A bit later I saw someone on my Instagram who was taking part in it and filled the form out at 1am in the morning. It was all very last minute.”

Did she do a performance piece?

“No,” Suad jokes, “I have too many talents to choose from and thought it would be better not to perform!”

I could see her doing a bit of kung fu on Dáithí.

“I’ll bear that in mind! One of my friends was like, ‘You should do some keepy-uppies’ but I’m not going to embarrass myself in front of all those people by dropping the ball!”

THRIFTING SINCE COLLEGE

Maria Walsh used winning the Rose in 2014 as a springboard to go into politics. Given all of her activism, is that a route Suad would consider taking?

“When I was in secondary, I actually wanted to do politics and human rights law,” she recalls. “I was big on the debating team and really saw a future for myself in politics. My older sister did a lot of youth work, so she was sort of the blueprint for me. When she was nineteen she was travelling around the world doing it as part of different organisations and did a lot of canvasing for political groups in Ireland during elections.

“I gradually realised it wasn’t for me because it takes a long time to get to a position where you can make a difference. I prefer grassroots work with organisations that are on the ground. That’s my way of making an impact. I was part of the core team at Islamic Relief for four or five years. We raised a lot of money for different projects in Ireland and abroad. In 2021, we built a school in Tunisia and went skydiving for it. That was probably my favourite.”

Are there any Irish or international political figures she admires?

“There’s a Somali lady called Hawa Abdi,” Suad nods enthusiastically. “She’s a human rights activist and doctor and has her own foundation. They do a lot for health care, education and sanitation all over the country.”

When deciding to enter the Dublin Rose, did Suad consider the possible kickback from right-wing trolls if she won?

“No, I genuinely never thought that far ahead,” she says. “I didn’t think I’d get it. I wouldn’t say I don’t care, but I’m not going to give it space to grow and have that sort of power over me. Life is too short and I’m not going to waste time dwelling on it.”

Continuing, Suad notes that: “There was actually way more support for me than hate.”

Indeed, looking at the various Twitter threads, it’s clear that the vast majority of the naysayers are either bots or American accounts of the Christofacist persuasion.

“It’s tough, but I’ve been raised by a very strong household of women, and I’m not one to let other people’s opinions faze me and change my mind,” she told Kieran Cuddihy on RTÉ’s Liveline. “I know I’m Irish, and I know myself. I don’t have to prove to anyone how Irish I am. So I’m very secure in that fact. And again, it is a very small group of people who are just very loud.”

Appalled by the abuse directed at her, Rose Director Anthony O’Gara said: “The festival celebrates Irish women from every background, culture and community, at home and around the world.

“We unequivocally condemn the racism and abuse directed at Suad. There is no place for this behaviour, online or otherwise. No individual should be subjected to it, and we commend Suad for the dignity and strength she has shown.”

“The Rose organisers have been really supportive,” Saud says. “My focus now is 100% on enjoying the festival experience and hopefully making everybody in Dublin proud of me.”

As usual, she’s very much dressed to impress today.

“I’ve been thrifting since college,” Suad smiles. “I do a tour – the ones in Tallaght Village are nice. There are also some really good ones down Camden Street. Areas like Dun Laoghaire and Bray as well. I shouldn’t be giving away all my thrifting secrets!”

Then there’s her catwalk exploits…

“Do you know WabiSabi?” she asks. “They do these street style interviews. The man behind it, Blessing, is from South Africa and they’re doing a fashion show which I’m really looking forward to walking in.”

As you can see from the full-page portrait of her in this interview, Suad has some beautiful floral designs on her hands.

“Yes, yesterday was Eid, so I got some henna done. I got it from this girl in Dublin called Henna By Zakiyyah. It’s jaguar henna which is a bit of a stronger stain – it’ll last two to three weeks and is a bit darker than traditional henna.”

SUCH A SUPERSTAR

We’ll return to matters sartorial in a moment. Meanwhile, the current situation in Gaza has struck a very personal chord with Suad.

“A lot of my best friends are Palestinian,” she rues. “It’s an atrocity, it’s a genocide, let’s call a spade a spade. I hope more can be done, especially by the government and other countries. Boycott, boycott, boycott; it works.”

Seamus Coleman’s recent comments about the upcoming Ireland v. Israel Nations’ League fixtures– “I am a dad, I am a husband, I’ve got a heart, I know the difference between right and wrong.” – didn’t need much de-coding.

Suad obviously doesn’t want those games going ahead.

“No, no,” she confirms.

Whatever about bots and right-wing loolahs on (anti) social media, it must be dispiriting when a former leader of the country, Bertie Ahern, says what he did recently about African immigrants.

“Let me use Rose-appropriate language because you’re meant to be apolitical. It’s… disappointing. I don’t even want to say his name.”

CMAT was able to be more forthright last month at the Ivor Novello Awards when she told Bertie and Nigel Farage to fuck off. And then fuck off some more.

“Everyone keeps telling me about this speech, I have to watch it!” Suad says. “I love CMAT, she’s such a superstar.”

Does she have any other musical crushes?

“The Plato of our generation, Drake!” she coos. “I also love Fontaines D.C. and Kneecap. There’s a great level of creative talent here at the moment.”

Grian and the chaps on occasion being dressed by Simone Rocha, the Dublin designer living in London exile who Suad similarly adores.

“One of my friends has reached out to her but if she’s reading this, ‘Hey Simone, I would love to wear one of your pieces at the Rose Of Tralee!’”

instagram.com/cakdup.ie

Thanks to Joseph M. Duffy & Sons florist, 3 Mary’s Lane, Dublin 7. josephmduffyandsons.com