The remote plains of Virginia, Co. Cavan, may sound like an unorthodox choice of base for a young popstar/TV personality, dubbed by the BBC as ‘Ireland’s answer to Posh Spice’, but there’s nowhere else Hazel Kaneswaran would rather be.

“You get the quality of life and the fresh country air up here,” she argues. “When I lived in the City Centre a couple of years ago, you’d walk outside every morning and the place was manky with dust. Think of what people are breathing in!”
Having abandoned the salubrious hamlet of North Strand for a five-bedroom pad in Cavan, the You’re A Star judge, along with partner Brian Fallon and sons Oisin (2) and Fionn (13 months) has become accustomed to a whole new pace of life.
“When I was growing up in Dublin, it was madness and very stressful. The traffic on the road here means that one tractor has stopped so yer man can have a chat with someone,” she laughs. “Besides, it’s only 50 minutes from my place to Blanchardstown, where my family is based. Sometimes it takes that long to get from Blanchardstown to the Navan Road. I try to make sure I work mid-afternoons so I don’t have to travel in the rush hour. Brian sometimes goes up to Dublin to model for TV3, and it kills him.”
As you might imagine, the exotic Hazel cuts quite a figure out against the backdrop of the farming community.
“Yeah, not only for the fact that I’m brown, but also it’s the pillar-box red hair!” she laughs. “It’s like, ‘Oh the mad one with the red hair has bought the house at the top of the hill’. When they see you on TV they expect you to be worth a fortune, when you’re not really.”
Being a down-to-earth type, Hazel has assimilated rather well into the remote community.
“I don’t think they see me as a superstar at all,” she contends. “I don’t come across as uppity. People come up to me in the supermarket and have a chat, which is better than them whispering about me. One of the neighbours looks after the kids during the day, so yeah, I’ve definitely made friends with everyone around me.”
As for the rustic dwelling itself, Kaneswaran put her own unique stamp on the place in typical artisan style… by creating her own artwork.
“I sent Brian to the store, he got me some MDF (board), we chopped pieces out of the MDF, and I painted pictures for a whole day,” she recalls. “You often see a bit of art for e400 in some gallery, and you think ‘I could do that myself’. So I thought, ‘Why not?’
“At least it’s my own taste. Now, when people say, ‘That’s lovely, where did you get it?’, I can always say, ‘I made it myself’. These days, people always ask me to paint something for them now. I just refuse to spend the money on something I could make for e8. I’ll wait until I have millions before I do that.”
There being no apparent end to Hazel’s talents, she also reveals that she is quite the versatile cook.
“My dad was Indian and my mum is Irish, so I can do all the Irish stuff like coddles and stews,” she reveals. “When my dad died ten years ago, I assumed his role of looking after my brothers and sisters while my mum was at work. So I had to get used to making a different dinner for 8 people every day. I got used to it pretty fast, and I could do a lot of Indian cuisine. I love doing Thai and Chinese too. Brian loves food…though I don’t suppose he knows how lucky he is!”
So have her You’re A Star colleagues made the trek up to Virginia to sample any of those culinary delights?
“I wouldn’t have my entertainment friends over here,” she claims. “Myself, Dave (Fanning) and Barbara (Galavan) would go out for dinner together in Dublin. I did buy an 8-seater table recently because both Brian and I have huge families; there’s 8 in mine and he has 3 siblings. Last year I cooked Christmas dinner for both families. I love entertaining, but sometimes it’s like a B&B here.”
As is the way with any artist attempting to orchestrate a change in musical direction, Hazel’s CD collection is a mosaic of diverse tastes and genres.
“I’ve a big enough collection, about 100 CDs,” she says. “It would have a lot of soul and R&B stuff in it. In the last few months, I’ve gotten a lot more rock – stuff like Anastastia, Evanescence, P.O.D. - because my music has gone that way. I tend to get CDs, and burn them onto the computer, so the music collection on the computer would probably be bigger.”
With that said, her computer is the first thing she would reach for in the event of a fire…after her family, of course.
“All my pictures from the last few years are in that computer,” she explains. “Everything is on there – my songs, my album, all the baby photos of the kids. If anything happened I’d crack up! Actually, I think I’d probably have to leave my kids behind for it, or send Brian to get them!”