Worn down by the cost of living and the mental load of housework that you still end up doing? Meet Ireland's trad wives replacing the notion of needing to have it all with a much simpler, slower alternative...

Published: 22:37, 22 May 2026 | Updated: 22:46, 22 May 2026 When I was younger, domestic life was treated like a consolation prize. If you genuinely enjoyed cooking, nesting or arranging your home like a Vogue spread, you kept it quiet. It was fine to do – just not to admit you liked it. Women were supposed to be striving, competing, achieving. Yet now, many women I know talk openly about slowing down and returning to home life – the thing we were told liberation meant leaving behind. So what happened? Women across Ireland are exhausted. Worn down by the cost of living, the mental load and the invisible work that still falls to them. It’s no wonder the idea of stepping away has become so seductive, not because women have suddenly developed a longing for 1950s domestic bliss, but because so many are simply burnt out from trying to excel at work while also keeping the house running, the children happy, the relationship healthy and the whole show on the road. Women were told they could have it all. Somewhere along the way, that promise quietly hardened into something less forgiving – do it all and then package it so neatly that it looks like life is unfolding at half-speed, in a perfectly-lit kitchen where nothing ever burns and no one is ever late. Scroll through social media and the image is instantly recognisable. Sourdough cooling as if it has nowhere urgent to be. An Aga doing the heavy lifting of atmosphere. Linen tablecloths behaving themselves. Children arranged with the quiet cooperation of small models in a lifestyle shoot. The ‘trad wife’ aesthetic – more visible, and more contested, than ever – turns domestic life into something carefully staged, even when it is meant to look effortless. But whether people admit it or not, plenty of women can see exactly why it appeals. Psychotherapist Dr Joanna Fortune is clear-eyed about curated images online ‘The world is a scary and unstable place right now,’ says psychotherapist Dr Joanna Fortune.  ‘The urge to retreat into the safe containment of one’s own home is completely understandable. The smaller we can make our world, the easier it is to feel a semblance of control.’ She adds something sharper underneath. ‘Things are increasingly expensive – investing in finding joy at home may simply feel more affordable,’ she says. The numbers back her up. A 2025 King’s College London study surveyed 1,000 women aged 18 to 34 on tradwife content.  Some 79 per cent were drawn not to submission or gender roles, but to the relaxed, calm, low-stress lifestyle it depicted. It isn’t submission they’re responding to, it’s fatigue. Dr Fortune is clear-eyed about the curated images though. ‘Posting is their job,’ she says.  ‘These creators spend hours working with production professionals to curate images of a simple life. Social media blurs the lines between reality and fantasy.’ What the trend signals, she says, goes deeper. ‘We are seeing a desire for slowing down, pulling inwards, comfort-seeking, spending time with the people they feel safest with.’ The Irish women I spoke to this week are doing exactly that. But they have something far more interesting to say than any prairie dress ever could. Laura Nicholson Hickey says most women want to live somewhere in the middle Laura Nicholson Hickey laughs when I raise the trad wife label. ‘Social media loves labels because they create extremes,’ she says. ‘Most women try to live somewhere in the middle. ‘I understand the appeal – there’s something very comforting about femininity and home and rituals. But it can also feel exhausting, looking from the outside in. A mix of both is okay.’ Laura lives in Mount Merrion with her husband Ronan and their three children. She founded LNH Edit, a range of hand block-printed Indian textiles, five years ago, and it is entirely female-led. The rhythm of it – slow, deliberate, built around family life – makes sense when she explains what came before it existed. ‘I found out I was pregnant with my third child and in the same period, I found out I carried the BRCA1 gene,’ she says. Laura has set up LNH Edit, a range of hand block-printed Indian textiles The gene signals a 90 per cent increased risk of breast cancer, and a 60 per cent risk of ovarian cancer.  Ten weeks after Toby’s birth, she had a full hysterectomy and her ovaries removed, going straight into surgical menopause with a newborn. A year later, she had a double mastectomy. ‘I’ve come through it a much better person,’ she says. ‘I never would have told myself I was resilient or brave before that journey. But I am.’ She knew she didn’t want to return to the corporate machine she’d left behind. But she still loved fabric, interiors, creativity and making her home beautiful. ‘I adore Martha Stewart, I’ve been such a huge fan for years,’ she says of the American home icon. ‘For me, the home has to be the base, not the trap.’ She’s clear that what she builds at home isn’t about nostalgia or gender roles, but creativity – something active, not passive. Laura says she adores Martha Stuart and loves homemaking ‘I personally just love homemaking,’ she says. ‘I reject the idea that it should be limited to women as well.  But creating a home for me is like cooking for my family – it’s hosting friends, it’s making the place feel warm, it’s making the place feel calm, I find that all very creative. ‘I’m quite a creative person so I think women today can build businesses, they can lead teams and they can earn money, but also value family time deeply.’ Motherhood, she says, made her more ambitious, not less. ‘Once you have kids, your time becomes so valuable,’ she says. ‘I built something that grew alongside my family, not instead of it.’ No matter how chaotic the week, the dinner table is set beautifully every time. ‘It makes your children sit longer because they can see the effort,’ she says. ‘Conversations are had. That is the heart of our family. I’m so grateful I am still present.’ Scroll through Niamh de Brún-Reid’s Instagram and you could think you’re looking at a high-end fashion account.  The 111,000 followers, the polished shoots, the effortless personal style – it all reads like a carefully- constructed aesthetic. Niamh de Brun-Reid at last week's VIP Style Awards Then you step back. She lives on a working cattle farm in south Kilkenny. At the tail end of calving season, fields of cows and newborn calves stretch in every direction. Her husband is TJ Reid, the Kilkenny hurling legend, and the home she is slowly, deliberately building around all of this is, she says, the most important thing she has ever done.  ‘Busy but intentional,’ she says. ‘Calm doesn’t just happen – I have to choose it. I’ve learned to build in small non-negotiables: movement, journaling and putting the phone down. Coming back to myself, because I can’t be everything to everyone. ‘I’m not regulated all the time,’ she adds drily. ‘I don’t know anybody who is. If you do, please send them my way.’ She is also candid about the gap between the feed and the reality behind it. ‘When something is off, I’m not posting,’ she says. ‘I can’t pretend everything is perfect.’ Her followers understand that distinction – and that trust has been key. The ‘trad wife’ label doesn’t fit her, and she’s clear about that – her career has always been central to who she is. But talk to her about home and something in the framing shifts. This is not about aesthetics for its own sake, it’s about atmosphere and feeling and control over the pace of life. ‘The world outside is so stressful – tech, AI, constant advertising,’ she says. ‘People are overstimulated. We’re being sold so much, so fast. I think people are craving slowness, connection, community and things that feel real. Intentional living isn’t about a perfect- looking life – it’s about pausing and asking, does this make me feel good? Is it serving me?’ That idea – of constantly filtering life through whether it feels sustainable – runs through everything she describes.  Not perfection, but intention. ‘I want it to be a space where everyone feels safe,’ she says of her home. ‘When I feel anxious, I visualise myself in my parents’ sitting room. ‘That’s what safety feels like. I want that for my children. You can have it all,’ she says. ‘Just not all at once.’ That seems to gesture towards something quieter than the online debate around trad wives or aesthetics or roles. Not a return to anything but a recalibration, a way of trying to make modern life feel slightly more breathable. Fiona Brennan is a clinical hypnotherapist and founder of The Positive Habit Fiona Brennan, clinical hypnotherapist and founder of The Positive Habit, based between Co Wicklow and Crete, brings a frame that makes sense of it. The longing for home, she says, is ancient. What is new is the desperation behind it. ‘When we close the door, it is a kind of sacred space,’ she says.  ‘When you hang up your coat, take off your shoes, and put your keys down, these are little rituals of letting go, we’re shedding the need for protection. That’s the environment where we thrive.’ Most women, she says, are arriving at that door already broken. ‘The pressure has only increased. Many women I work with are completely frazzled. The trad wife dream,’ she adds bluntly, ‘is a luxury most cannot afford. That’s where society has missed a trick. Now we’re picking up the pieces of women who are exhausted. ‘You can spend all your time making it look perfect, but if internal tension is still living in you, it won’t be a calm space. ‘A happy mummy is far more important than a clean kitchen.’ Her advice is simple: ‘When you come home, consciously leave everything at the door – the stress, the traffic, the boss’s comments. Treat your home as a sacred space.’ She draws on Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. ‘Treat your partner as you would a guest – with deep respect and kindness,’ she says. ‘Notice your tone. That alone can bring immense peace.’ Cherie Denham grew up in Co Tyrone and now lives in a 17th century cottage in Hampshire Cherie Denham, 55, grew up in Co Tyrone, daughter of a pig and beef farmer, in a world where the kitchen was serious, skilled work. It was the grandmothers and great-aunts who shaped everything. ‘My granny in Co Armagh baked soda farls, apple tarts, lemon meringue pie,’ she recalls. ‘Her press was always full of jams. The smells were so evocative.’ There was Auntie Maisie with her incredible chocolate cakes and Auntie Evelyn – the adventurous one – who came home from travels with dates and pomegranates, ingredients nobody else in the village had seen. ‘She inspired me hugely,’ she says. Cherie left at 18 with very little. ‘I never fell with my backside in the butter,’ she says briskly. She trained at Leith’s School of Food and Wine and built her own catering company. Today she runs her food business from a 17th century Hampshire cottage, kitchen doors opening on to gardens and fields. Cherie's cookbook The Irish Kitchen won Cookbook of the year at the Irish Book Awards Her cookbook The Irish Kitchen won Cookbook of the Year at the Irish Book Awards and was shortlisted for the Fortnum & Mason prize from 800 entries. On why women are romanticising this life so powerfully, she doesn’t hesitate. ‘The world has become so uncertain,’ she says. ‘People want escapism and to nurture their families. Making a loaf of bread or homemade butter is a good place to start.’ Nothing in her kitchen is wasted. ‘Thrift isn’t stinginess, it’s a cure for overconsumption.’ Her mother’s voice runs through everything. ‘She always taught us, no matter what, we’d be able to feed ourselves and our families,’ she says. The life millions of women now chase as a fantasy – the kitchen as sanctuary, food made with care, home as the centre of everything – women like Cherie’s grandmothers never called a lifestyle choice; they called it Tuesday. The women in this piece are not withdrawing from life. They have taken hard-won ambition – tested by illness, shaped by motherhood, rooted in memory – and redirected it into businesses that bend around family life and homes that are not showpieces but the centres of actual lives. ‘Everybody wants that sanctuary,’ Laura tells me. ‘But so many people have already built that hybrid life, they’re just not taking the time to appreciate it. The world is so fast and so noisy.’ Cherie’s grandmothers never spoke about ‘slow living’ or ‘intentional homes’. There was no language for it, no aesthetic to curate, no trend to follow. There was only the work of living – feeding families, keeping houses running, making do and making something of it anyway. Perhaps that is what this moment is reaching for. Beneath the language of aesthetics and lifestyle branding, not something new at all, but something much older – home, in its most ordinary and enduring sense. The Irish Kitchen by Cherie Denham is available now. LNH Edit is at lnhedit.com. Follow Niamh de Brún-Reid on Instagram @niamhdebrun. Fiona Brennan’s books and programme are at thepositivehabit.com. Dr Joanna Fortune practises at solamh.com Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.