By Sandra Mallon

Copyright irishmirror

The Traitors Ireland star Paudie Moloney has told how he could barely eat while being on the show because he was under intense stress. The nation was plunged into mourning after ‘The Paudfather’ was the latest player to be banished from the show after the faithfuls discovered he was a traitor.

Speaking to presenter Dermot Whelan on The Oliver Callan Show on Wednesday, 68-year-old retired prison guard Paudie said he was “very disappointed” for his reign as a Traitor to finally come to an end after he was banished from Slane Castle in Tuesday night’s episode.

“I was disappointed of course,” he said. “I know it’s not impossible, you can survive from start to finish as a Traitor, but it’s very hard. I got a good run and I was happy with that, to be honest.”

Paudie told Kevin McGahern on Uncloaked: “It may have been a nervous kind of a thing. It may have been, I don’t know. I will tell you though, I wasn’t eating. I genuinely couldn’t eat the breakfast. I think I ate a croissant one morning. I ate the whole croissant instead of just picking it at the breakfast table.

“Every breakfast table was… you didn’t know what was in it. I mean, Jesus, I was going back in from the conclave. And I didn’t have… I was stomaching my Ps and Qs. My stomach was in a knot.

“And genuinely, I know for a fact, I gave 30 years in the prison service, I believe in my heart and soul now, I was never stressed. Because I was stressed those two weeks. My God I was stressed. That’s a fact.”

After being banished by his fellow contestants, and revealing he was a Traitor, Paudie had another bombshell for the remaining players – his son Andrew was in their midst all along.

“It was brilliant, it was almost like still being in touch with home, in that stressful environment,” Paudie told Oliver Callan on his RTE Radio One show.

Fellow Traitor Katelyn previously said ‘Paudie fever’ has gripped the nation, but he was typically low-key about the reaction of viewers.

“I don’t know. This is all very new to me. I wouldn’t be an outgoing person like that, but I’m enjoying it,” he said. “People are very nice and very good, they come up and talk to me. I’m quite happy to just salute and say hello and have a chat.”

The retired prison officer said he used skills from his former job on The Traitors Ireland.

“Working in the prison is a stressful job, but inside the castle, when you are watching your back, you’re watching every word you say, you’re watching other people’s reactions to what you say, and you don’t know if you made a boo-boo… You’re fighting to survive. It was very stressful,” he said.

“In the prison you react to situations and I reacted to a lot of situations in there, it just came naturally to be honest. You’re in that mode where you’re heightened, and you’re watching what you say.”

Fellow contestant Christine, who was murdered in Tuesday’s episode by the Traitors, had no hard feelings towards Paudie. “I still think Paudie for President!,” she laughed. “Our Paudfather.”

Christine met her slow demise on the show after receiving a piseóg, an ancient Irish curse, from Traitor Nick, in the form of a hug.

“And do you know what the funny thing is, I’m not a hugger in a massive way, my kids will tell you that,” she told Whelan.

“If you listen, two or three seconds before that as I’m walking towards Nick, I go ‘Oh my gazelle’, because we have an ongoing joke that he’s like a gazelle and I’m like a meercat, because I’m five-foot-two and he’s six-foot-four. We always looked quite funny standing next to each other, so it wasn’t uncommon for me to put my hands around him and for him to put his hands around me.

“So after 9/10 days together, me doing that gesture was so easy and I can see why he might have chosen me. It was not at all suspicious. It is what it is!”

When asked if she found the funeral tough going, Christine said jokingly: “It was a great turnout, the crowd that they got was exceptional, the way they were crying… Paudie giving it welly with the handshakes, he genuinely got into it.”

She even took being encased in a wooden coffin in her stride. “For me, I felt absolutely fine, that coffin had so much more room than the MRI machines we have in the hospital, so for me it was comfortable.”

Christine said that dealing with MS (Multiple Sclerosis) and being in the pressure-cooker environment like The Traitors actually “felt quite relaxing”.

“I have been through so much real-life experiences that have been pressurising, situations that have caused a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety,” she said.

“What I’ve learned with that, and with the diagnosis, is – we have no control over the uncontrollable things in life. When you accept that it gives you a sense of control within yourself.”

And would they do it again? “Absolutely, 100%”, Christine said. “Without a doubt,” Paudie added.

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