How I Met My Partner: Magical festival weekend led to wedding bells for Liam and Roisin

LIAM Quaide and wife Roisin Cuddihy were in the same circles in UCC, but only met and fell in love years later.

After both starting psychology careers in Dublin, they subsequently moved back to Cork, where they had almost met but didn’t, to settle down and raise a family.

They now have two children together, and they balance parenthood with political activism, with Liam saying “It’s an interesting kind of full circle theory.”

The Social Democrats local election candidate explained, “We went to UCC at the same time during our undergraduate years and had friends in common but did not meet each other, or even know each other to see, at that stage, it was quite a number of years later before we met.

“Roisin was studying science and I did philosophy and French, we hadn’t met at all even though we later realised we had friends in common, and we ended up in similar careers.”

The first meeting 

In 2006, they were both living in Dublin and both volunteering for Amnesty International, when they met at a concert Liam had organised for the charity.

“We met up on and off for a little while after that, and there was a very strong chemistry between us.

“One magical weekend in 2007 we attended a festival in Dun Laoghaire — we had a meeting of minds on so many issues and felt an amazing connection there as if we had known each other for years.”

Roisin was training to be a primary teacher at the time, and later branched into educational psychology, and Liam was pursuing a career in clinical psychology.

'A perfect day'

They were married in 2012 in the Trinity College chapel, with Liam saying “Rarely in your life will you have a perfect day, and that was it.”

After Liam graduated from his second degree that year, he started working in adult mental health services in north Cork in early 2013, while Roisin was embarking on a very similar career change and studying educational psychology in UCD.

He said: “There was a period where I had started my first year in north Cork and Roisin was still living in Dublin, so we were kind of up and down to each other a lot, then in early 2014 we moved down to east Cork and we’ve been there ever since.

“We were drawn to Midleton because it combined the best of country life with a vibrant urban energy — the farmers market, superb restaurants and close access to beaches and woods and Cork city have made Midleton an ideal place to live.”

As well as their similar career paths, the two have a lot in common, with Liam explaining.

“Our shared values are at the core of our relationship — we both have had a keen sense of justice and fairness since we were very young.

“We are sensitive people and I think the strength in our personalities can be underestimated as a result. These traits have motivated our career choices and our interest in politics.”

Liam and Roisin have two children, and he said, “our primary focus is on our children’s needs, their development and wellbeing, while also being mindful of our duty as citizens — to effect change as much as we can in society and for the country.”

Political activism 

In fact, it was becoming parents that motivated the couple to turn their shared values into political activism.

He explained: “We both became active in politics in 2017, a year after the birth of our daughter Bláithín.

“Climate change felt like a much greater threat as parents because we could see that Bláithín’s future was in serious danger.

“Our awakening to the climate crisis was the catalyst for our political engagement, and I have also been very motivated by my work in mental health services to bring about social change and to advocate for people who are suffering injustice.”

Their second child, son Rossa, was born in 2021, and Liam said: “Blá and Rossa are the centre of our lives — she’s so good to him as his big sister and he really looks up to her, we feel blessed to have them.”

Liam is still working as a clinical psychologist, as well as running in the local elections as the Social Democrats councillor for East Cork, and they spend a lot of time visiting the children’s grandparents in Kilkenny and Limerick.

He concluded: “It’s a huge challenge to balance all our responsibilities and keep Blá and Rossa as our primary focus.

“Our most important aim in life is to be decent parents, and after that to change the world!”