If it is the duty of every interviewer to find out what makes their subject tick, then Gráinne Seoige presents something of a challenge. After all, if you ask the real Gráinne Seoige to please stand up, with whom would you be confronted? Would it be the only broadcaster in the country to have played a key role on four major television stations - RTÉ, TV3, TG4 and Sky News (Ireland)? The light entertainment queen who hosts the biggest talent show in the land and is RTÉ's go-to gal when it comes to major TV events such as Up for the Match and People of the Year? Would it be the serious, college trained journalist with a passion for language and heritage? Or the glamorous cover girl who regularly tops those sexiest Irish women polls?

Fresh from her RTÉ Guide cover shoot, the thirtysomething Galway presenter sinks into a leather chair and reflects on the contrast between the woman in the photo-shoot and the woman sitting in front of me in a casual shirt, jeans and boots ensemble.

"People in general and women in particular want to judge you if you have this glamorous image", says Gráinne. "I'm killed saying this", she adds, unleashing a bawdy laugh that would put Carry On's Sid James to shame, "but I'm not like this all the time. I'm like this for work!"

So would we encounter a very different Gráinne Seoige were we to bump into her in the supermarket aisle? "Well, I'm not going to lie to you", she responds. "I'm not going to go outside the door without sunscreen on because you have to protect your face. And I will throw a bit of foundation on and a bit of mascara and a bit of lip-gloss but no more than any other woman would. My hair is usually in a ponytail and I live in jeans and a pair of boots and that duffel coaty thing over there that I'm going to be found dead in. When I was in news, I used to tell people that I don't go into Dunnes in a pin-striped suit and say [adopting sombre newsreader voice] 'can I have some sliced ham please?' It's not who I am; it's my job."

At the moment, Gráinne's job is to play host to an array of nationwide talent (and referee to squabbling judges) as The All Ireland Talent Show reaches its climax. "It's all come up a level this year", she explains. "Last year, it was all new and it was a first for everybody. This year, when we all came back to Ardmore, the show had a muscle memory. The competitiveness between the judges became more acute, too, especially as Daithí let everybody know how good it was to be the king! So this year it was all more comfortable and that meant we could play with it more. There's more craic between myself and the judges and because the acts know more about the show, a greater variety of talent has come out of the woodwork."

I wonder if she was ever the type of youngster we see on the show; a young girl in Spiddal, singing into her hairbrush and dreaming of fame. "I wasn't one of those hairbrush-in-front-of-the-mirror kids, but in our house, and this is true for people from the country and particularly from the west, entertaining visitors is what you did; visiting is what you did; ag cuairteach, we called it. People would come in and get fed. The next thing, somebody would sing a song and somebody else would say, 'now Gráinne, you play the whistle'. It was part of growing up."

As she recalls childhood, it's clear that there's a palpable connection between today's successful broadcaster and the young girl who spent her formative years west of the Shannon. "Sometimes we would go to my granny's in Rosmuc or my other granny's on Inis Meáin and that tradition was still there", she recalls. "Whatever was in the press was made into sandwiches; the Swiss Roll would be cut up, the bottles of Guinness would be passed around and people would sing and tell stories. So we didn't have that nervousness about performing that other people might have had. I wasn't doing Dancing Queen with the hairbrush but I probably was doing sean nós."

That tradition didn't die out when Gráinne moved east. "It certainly didn't! Even last Christmas, it was all transplanted to my house in Wicklow. The plates got cleared and Dad would start telling funny stories of growing up or when he lived in England. And then it would be a case of, 'c'mon Síle, sing Skibbereen'. And my brother, Cian, would then sing his beautiful Scottish song. So it's in our blood."

It all seems a million miles away from the bright lights of a television studio, particularly when you discover that TV played such a minor role in the Seoige household. "Number one for us was Raidió na Gaeltachta in our house", she explains. "I do also have memories of the theme tune to The Gay Byrne Hour and I do have a memory of Dear Frankie. Did I have TV heroes? Well, I remember seeing Charles Mitchell one day and apparently I turned around to my mother and said to her, 'I want to do that some day'."

At what point did she have the confidence to make that early dream become a reality? ''To be honest,'' she replies, ''there was no point in my life where that ever happened to me. I actually wanted to be a newspaper journalist. I did Arts in Galway and then a postgrad in Applied Communications, as gaeilge. TnaG came along and I interviewed for the reporter job and didn't get it so I was heart-broken. They asked me to interview for the news anchor job and I got that. Then TV3 came along and said, we've seen you read news but we've never heard you speak English, read this. And then Sky News came along. I don't think people believe me but things have just kind of happened. It was never a case of 'now I want a chat show' or 'now I want a shiny floor entertainment show where I can wear short dresses'.''

So no grand plan, then?

''Absolutely not! I've never had a plan and I think that's good because I learned early that life doesn't go to plan. As soon as you start planning things, you're sure to get a kick in the bum. My philosophy is: do what you're doing at the moment as well as you can do it; the other stuff will come.''

One such kick in the bum for Gráinne arrived last year with the cancellation of Seoige, the RTÉ day-time chat show for which she initially shared the couch with Joe O'Shea and later with younger sister, Sile. Although time has passed, you can tell the experience of being taken off the air still rankles.

''I don't think there was a journalist in the land who didn't have something to say about that,'' she recalls. ''Having said that, I would put those newspapers under the wee-wee mats where the dogs go to the loo! But it is tough to be on the receiving end of such gloating and a lot of it was gloating. Seoige wasn't just the name of the programme; it's my family name, so that did hurt because my family and my heritage mean everything to me. It informs every fibre of my being; it's my touchstone.''

The more she talks about her family; the more you get a sense of what truly drives Gráinne Seoige. That goes for her parents in Spiddal and also for her grannies (''both 90 and still hale and hearty,'' she beams). It also goes for her home in Co. Wicklow; where she lives with her husband, Stephen, and her teenage son, Conall.

''Home is a place where I don't talk shop at all,'' she proudly states. ''At home there are dinners to be made, dogs to be walked and laundry to be done.''

So for those only familiar with the glamorous persona, what's a typical day in the life of Gráinne Seoige? ''Stephen and I alternate,'' Gráinne explains, ''but if I'm up with Conall in the morning then I'm up at 6.45am and out the door at 7am to drop him to school by 7.30am. I might go to the gym after that for an hour or else come home, have a bit of breakfast and catch up on the news. And then basically I'll start doing housework. I might have an interview to do or I might have a voice-over to do and the odd time I'll get to meet my friends, though I still don't do that enough. I find the day gets filled up with jobs, but it's the normal stuff that everybody does, The dogs need to be fed and whether it's hail, rain or shine, their faces are looking up and saying, c'mon mam, we want to be walked! It's the same stuff that every other woman in the country does, really and truly.''

That same stuff includes keeping a son occupied as he goes through his Transition Year. ''Ah sure he's killed, the poor créatúr. Every hour that God sends he's studying!'' Though clearly reluctant to talk much about her son, it's not easy for mum to hide her sense of pride. ''Conall's a smart boy and he's his own person,'' she tells me. ''He's very strong-minded himself and goes his own way but whatever he does with his life I'll be pleased for him. As long as he's happy, that's all that matters to me. I think that whole thing in this country that you have to be a doctor or a lawyer seems to be gone, thank God, and kids are allowed to express themselves. As long as Conall finds a path in life that fulfils him, that's all I want from him.''

For her own path in life, Gráinne Seoige has chosen a profession in which presenters in general and women in particular are judged as much on their appearance as on their ability to do the job in hand. So does she ever feel under pressure to look a certain way or to be a certain size?

''Well, I don't like to be judged myself but I live with the fact that I'm in a business that will judge me on how I look,'' she says. ''Unless you're very strong, that stuff can get in on you. Women should give each other a break and stop buying those papers and magazines that comment on how people look and circle their cellulite, etc. Whether you're a multi-millionaire Hollywood actress or a nurse or a teacher or somebody like me, we're all women; we're all made the same way with the same bodies and the same functions and you do the best with what God gave you.''

Although the presenter is speaking in general terms, she herself has been the subject of such media scrutiny in recent times. ''That's true,'' she concedes. ''I've had that stuff written about myself in the past few weeks. One paper found a picture of me from about, I would say, ten years ago, when I was in my early twenties and I do look pudgy, no doubt about it. And they put it beside a picture from The Meteors recently where I had my hair scraped back and I was in this gorgeous dress and the caption was: that's what she looked like last week and that's what she looks like now! Do you know what I mean? I find it hilarious!''

Laughing in the face of such press coverage is clearly the best approach in an industry which can send the less strong-minded fleeing for their therapists. ''You have to laugh about it,'' says Gráinne. ''You can't take such coverage seriously. I mean, you interview actresses all the time who probably live in gated communities, high in the Hollywood hills, and even they fluctuate in weight. Because guess what, they're women! And every woman knows that, depending on the time of the month, you can fluctuate in weight by up to five pounds. The press seem to think that once you're on TV you're not a human being any more, you're not real, and therefore you have no feelings.

''It's a weird objectification,'' she continues. ''I mean, I live down the road. My son goes to school up the road from here. I don't make millions of pounds to take off to Mauritius whenever the going gets tough. Donatella Versace is not ringing me up and saying 'you must wear the green one, darling!' That doesn't happen to me or to anyone else here yet you're kinda being judged by the same standards but without the cushioning other people have. And again it goes back to your nature and your upbringing whether you can dismiss it or not.''

Of course the irony in all of this is that in all the years I've known her, the broadcaster has never looked fitter or healthier. The morning visits to the gym have already got a mention, but are we talking Spartan eating regimes here?

'' I would describe myself now as very fit and healthy, rather than anything else,'' Gráinne explains. ''I work hard in the gym but it doesn't rule my life. And I'm not tough on myself at all in terms of food. I've always been a great eater and I'm eating five times a day, probably more than I've ever eaten. My father always used to say, 'I never saw a girl to eat like our Gráinne' and that hasn't changed. When I first came into RTÉ, I was as fit as a fiddle but three years of daily chat shows where you're not in control of your food and you're snacking on the move is hard on your system. When you go home in the evening and you're catatonic from dealing with eight or nine different guests, and you have briefs to go over for the following day, it's quite hard to motivate yourself to go out; bar heading out to walk the dogs.''

So are we any closer to finding out what makes Gráinne Seoige tick? Time perhaps to lob in a Dr Phil-type question: if she had the opportunity to offer any advice to her 16-year-old self growing up in Spiddal, what would that be?

''That's really tough!'' laughs Gráinne. ''One of the things I would say to her is; don't envy the popular or good-looking girls in the class; your day will come. I'm not saying I was an ugly duckling but I didn't get the attention at school. So when college starts I'd tell her to be ready for the onslaught because that was one of the biggest surprises I got. A switch seemed to go on one day and I didn't know how to handle it. So I would be advising my 16-year-old self to stand tall and be proud of who you are because it will serve you well. We all get knocks and kicks in life but it's not what happens to you that counts; it's how you respond. Myself and Sile got that bad news last year but I feel I'm stronger as a result. So perhaps it is facing such challenges that makes me tick.''

And what would the 16-year-old shy Galway lass say back to the cover girl sitting in front of me? ''I think she'd say, 'Jaysus, there's some shtuff in you!''' says Gráinne, before unleashing that famous laugh and making her way out of RTÉ, away from the cameras, the lights and the make-up and back to her Wicklow home and reality.

After all, there are dogs to be walked.