Catching happiness
When broadcaster Noelle McCarthy moved to New Zealand in 2003, she carried a notebook with two names written in the back – musician PJ Harvey and writer Jane Austen. “It was a reminder to myself as a woman that I didn’t need to have a husband and children, and those sorts of domestic trappings, in order to be fully realised.”
The Irish-born star with the distinctive brown curls was 24 then, and was beginning her broadcasting career as the news and editorial director at bFM. Sixteen years on, Noelle is happily married to author John Daniell. Together they have an almost two-year-old daugher, Eve, and have recently moved to the countryside in Featherston, Wairarapa. Noelle is learning to garden and has a chicken house ready to fill with a brood of hens. It wasn’t in her plans – it all happened in a whirlwind just before she turned 40.
“I still hate the narrative that marriage is when your life starts in earnest,” says the journalist best known for her eight years hosting RNZ’s . “But when it came down to it, the actual decision to be committed to John felt like a natural progression
