Copyright evoke
Katelyn Divilly is tired. It's a lot of work being Ireland's first female Traitor, holding down a full-time job and still finding time to celebrate. This week brought plenty of reasons to raise a glass, as The Traitors Ireland reached its dramatic finale with Oyin, Vanessa and Kelley victorious in catching Traitors Ben and Nick - and scooping almost €43,000 in prize money. While 32-year-old Galway woman Katelyn didn't walk away with the cash, she was one of the central figures of the season, capturing the nation's attention - and, unexpectedly, becoming something of a feminist role model. 'Stop, I love it,' she laughs, when told young girls and women have been inspired by her - my own young daughters are borderline obsessed. 'I've had so many messages from parents saying similar, that I've encouraged girls to stand tall and not let anything get in the way of their dreams.' Raised in Corrandulla, a small village in Co Galway, alongside her two older sisters, Katelyn is no stranger to having to stand her ground. 'I've always been competitive,' she says. 'Going into that [Traitors] environment amplifies that feeling.' But there's no doubt she makes an unlikely villain. With her small frame and flowery dresses, she might appear gentle, yet Katelyn proved herself as lethal as the lads, her fellow original Traitors, Paudie and Eamonn. 'I actually buy a lot of my stuff in charity shops,' she says of her feminine wardrobe. 'I try to get as much as I can second-hand - I beg, borrow and steal from charity shops and vintage stores. My friend actually made the earrings I wore on the show, so it was good to give her a shout-out. 'It was another friend of mine who originally put me on to the show, because we used to play a very similar game in college called Avalon, a social deduction card game,' she explains, of her motivation to try out for the Irish version of the hit series. 'I applied and I just had this sixth sense almost that I'd be successful in getting in. 'My friends were like, "You'd be so good at this", which is ironic, as they will also say I'm the most honest person in our gang,' she laughs. 'Honesty is my number one value. So even though I really wanted to be a Traitor, I was concerned that might go against me.' But once in the castle, she quickly discovered another trait she was previously unaware of - deception came as second nature to her. 'I didn't think it would be so easy for me to lie,' she admits. From the start, Katelyn told fellow contestants she was a wedding celebrant, when in fact, she works as an organisational development consultant. 'Well, there was a thread of truth in it - I was a celebrant for my friend's wedding the year previous,' she grins. 'I really enjoyed it too, and I'd do it again. 'But I think I really leaned into the dynamics of my real job from the start to help me play the game. So much of human behavior is focused on things like emotional intelligence, group dynamics, group biases and building trust. 'I would say I'm a pretty trusting person, I try to see the best in everyone. Of course, if they show you who they really are, then you need to re-evaluate your stance with them. But I'm very trusting.' Perhaps that's why Katelyn - who as a big fan of the series before she entered the castle, knew only too well how the game goes - was still stunned by how quickly things soured in the Traitors camp. ‘If you watch previous seasons, it's inevitable that at some point the Traitors will turn on each other,' she says. 'I remember in our very first Conclave, saying to Eamon and Paudie, "Look, later in the game there is going to come a time where we probably have to vote for each other, because that's where the heat is and that's fine",' she recalls. 'I am a very collaborative person by nature. Actually, very early in the game, Paudie had kind of thrown my name out there, and I just wasn't expecting it to all fall apart so early on. I was upset about it, you know, and I think you can tell in my reactions at the Round Table.' She remembers being 'really worked up' during Paudie's interrogation, which ultimately raised suspicions among the group and led to her downfall. 'I was like, "You've really inhibited my game so early on", and I just couldn't understand what I had done to get that from him. But I mean, in hindsight, I can probably see that he was trying to give his son the heads-up, or get him into the Conclave.' Of course - Paudie and Andrew. For Katelyn, the revelation that a father and son were in the castle was the biggest shock of all. 'I honestly thought that was one of the most shocking moments of the whole experience, I couldn't believe it!' she exclaims. Still, she admits that once inside the castle, everything feels heightened. 'I used to watch it and think, why are these people crying? Or, like, how are they getting so close?' she says. 'I was of the mindset going in that it was just a game. I didn't anticipate how challenging it was going to be.' 'It was an intense experience,' she says simply. 'I don't think the audience understands how intense it actually is. Then because it's so intense, your cognitive capacity is reduced because you're tired, you're stressed, you're in fight or flight, and that causes you to make decisions you wouldn't normally make. 'I thought I was going to be able to manage myself a lot better,' she shrugs. 'But going in as an original Traitor, it's unlikely you're going to go too far so winning wasn't my goal. 'I wanted to get a couple of episodes, wear the cloak and have some fun. I ended up getting halfway, which was more than I'd ever anticipated.' One of her toughest days came with 'Shieldgate', when she failed to tell teammates she had been awarded a shield by host Siobhán McSweeney. 'That was my hardest day,' she admits. 'I genuinely never planned to withhold that information from them. I was just a bit overwhelmed. I was always intending to tell them and I should have done. But afterwards on the drive back to the castle I knew I had made a big mistake.' So while her pleas of innocence against Paudie's heckling and Nick's sceptisim were part of the act, her emotional breakdown was genuine? 'They were real tears!' she insists. 'I was exhausted, and I knew I'd made a mistake. I am a very emotional person, so although I'm really well able to self-manage - I'm typically quite calm under pressure I do cry a lot. I am someone who will cry if I'm feeling overwhelmed. Once I started, I couldn't stop.' Katelyn was just as unsettled as viewers by some of the show's more surreal moments, particularly Nick's 'hug of death' and Christine's subsequent funeral. 'That whole episode was really unsettling, although I'm actually quite comfortable with the topic of death,' she reveals. 'I actually said it to my best friend too. I was like, I would love to have gotten in that coffin,' she squeals, adding that when it came to committing murder, she did feel some remorse. 'I felt bad about murdering John because he had had so little time in the castle. But the penultimate episode, when Nick and Ben had to banish Faye, I don't know how I would have gotten through that being so completely ruthless. Like I know it's a cliche, but I made friends for life there,' she says warmly. 'We are honestly all so close.' Would she do it all again? Today, yes, but immediately after her exit from Slane, that would have been a very big no. 'I was like, never again, no way, because your nervous system's all over the place,' she says. 'But two weeks later, I was 100 per cent game on again. I've no regrets. I wouldn't change a thing about how I played. I made the mistakes I needed to make to get where I am right now.
