“The hook-up is horrific! It’s not like I’ve made a home movie sex tape or anything — which is my worst nightmare, I don’t know why people do it — but this is the closest.”

If you’re not familiar, Below Deck is a reality TV show set on a superyacht, which started life back in 2013. Since then, the original show has run for 10 seasons and spawned four spin-off series — Below Deck Mediterranean, Adventure, Down Under and Sailing Yacht, in which Kelliher stars. Whether it’s shooting in the Caribbean or sailing around the Sardinian coast, the premise is essentially the same: get a crew of hot, party-loving “yachties” and film them for 24 hours a day over a six-week period as they cater to the every whim of charter guests. Inevitably, high jinks ensue, whether that’s passionate hook-ups in a hot tub or heated arguments over hierarchy.

Though it’s been on screens for a decade, the series really gained traction during the pandemic, when millions of people (myself included) turned to the franchise for some much-needed escapism, and quickly became addicted. It helped that the streaming service Hayu, which launched in Ireland in 2016, already had plenty of episodes of the show ready to go — just what an audience needed during multiple lockdowns.

It was the pandemic that brought Kelliher onto the show, too. “I was in Thailand, on a boat that I’d worked on for three years,” she tells me. “The boat was coming back and the owner didn’t want girls going through the Suez Canal, so I got off in Sri Lanka and flew home.”

“The world shut down the day I flew to Ireland. Quickly after that, I lost my job, which was pretty hard. All my stuff was on the boat, I didn’t get to say goodbye to anyone. Suddenly I was 32 and living at home again, all in the space of a week. I was in a bad place.

“A few friends had seen that Below Deck was recruiting and told me to apply. I initially said no, but then thought, what do I have to lose? I’m just in bed in my parents’ place. I never thought in a million years I was going to get it. Then fast-forward a few months, and I was flying out to Croatia.”

The new series is her third as ‘chief stew’. She became a firm fan favourite from the get-go, with her outspoken attitude, lack of ego and infectious cackle. She also curses like a sailor, and has the phrase ‘f**k off’ tattooed on the inside of her bottom lip. In short, she’s the kind of girl that everyone wants to be friends with.

She also comes from a long line of Irish sailing heritage. In 1964, her grandfather, Eddie Kelliher, sailed for Ireland in the Tokyo Olympics, and plenty of her relatives have worked in the yachting industry. The day after we speak, she’s flying out to Antigua to meet her parents on their own boat, where they’ll be sailing around the Caribbean for two weeks.

But while the series has plenty of beautiful sailing moments — the boat heeling on turquoise water under the billowing sails — there’s a lot more to the show than just boating. So why does she think it’s become such a big success story?

“I think it has so much going on, so it appeals to so many different demographics,” she says. “You’ve got the travel aspect, you’ve got messy drunken drama, the job itself… it encompasses so much variety. It’s also just relatable. Everyone, at some stage, has worked in service. People can relate to that, and to those office hook-ups at the staff party… and having to deal with it the next day.”

Unlike some of Bravo’s other reality shows, like The Real Housewives, the stars of this franchise do actually work while being filmed. And that’s putting it mildly — most of the crew are pulling gruelling 16-hour days.

“I get people asking me, ‘Do you really work?’ But it’s the hardest I’ve ever worked in my life,” she says. “From the minute I wake up, it’s mentally and physically so full-on. It’s by far the most challenging job I’ve ever had.” As well as the physicality of the main job, there’s the pressure of filming, the fast pace of charters and the demands of the guests, some of whom are desperate for their own moment of fame. Guests pay a heavily discounted rate to charter the yacht, but they are, as Kelliher puts it, “more eccentric than we’d have in real life”.

With all that action going on around them, it’s hard to keep up a facade for the cameras. “It all happens very fast, it’s just crazy. You just get thrown into it. And I think that’s part of why it works — if you gave people time to assess what was going on, they could put more of a front up. But the majority of the time, it’s all happening so quickly that you have to be yourself. There are definitely moments when you’re at your most busy, or most drunk, when you forget about the cameras.”

It’s on the crew night out, which happens every three days, where the aforementioned drinking really comes into its own. Just watching the way in which most of the yachties can throw back the wine, down tequila and pound beers is enough to give anyone a hangover. “You can definitely not drink,” says Kelliher. “Production don’t push alcohol on you. But I don’t know why you wouldn’t — I couldn’t think of anything worse than sitting with them sober.

“Part of the reason why Below Deck is so successful is seeing that dynamic of work and play. It wouldn’t be such a great show seeing people at work. It’s the fact that you then go on the night out and find a way to work with each other the next day, and balance that professional and personal life. Otherwise, you’re just going to work and going to bed.”

And what else usually happens when you throw together hot young party animals and a boat load of booze? A whole lot of sex. A surprising number of former crew members have had sex on camera, whether it’s in a guest cabin (where there are no cameras, just cringeworthy audio) or, as was the case in the last season of Below Deck, on a top bunk while a fellow crew member lies awake just inches below. And it sounds like the new series of Sailing Yacht won’t be any different. “There’s going to be some of that, and I’m going to be involved with it,” says Kelliher. “To clarify, I didn’t have sex while someone was in the bottom bunk! But there were a few steamy make-out sessions.”

Several former cast members have started accounts on OnlyFans, the online subscription service known for explicit content. One crew member from Kelliher’s last season joined the platform, then tweeted that she made more money in a couple of hours than she did from filming the entire six-week season. “I genuinely believe her when she says that wasn’t her initial intention,” Kelliher says. “But it’s a TV show — people come on to build a career for themselves. People go to university to get a job. Maybe that’s why people go on Below Deck, to get an OnlyFans!

“Sometimes I have to question some of the agendas of some of the junior crew. I do think some of them come on thinking that the show is scripted, and they’re not really going to work. Then they realise it’s actually really hard. But I don’t care what their agenda is, as long as they do their job.”

It must be hard not to think about how people will perceive everything you do and say, and what the audience reaction will be months down the line. “In the first year, I didn’t care at all. I was in such a bad place with Covid, so desperate to feel like myself again. I also didn’t care about building a career after the show. I just wanted to be true to myself and be good at my job.

“There’s also the fact I did it when I was a bit older — I don’t know if I would have had the same mindset when I was 10 years younger. I was 33 when I started and had lived quite a big life. I’d travelled a lot, worked my way up to management status. I think I did it perfectly, to be honest. My mental state was a bit more resilient. Being older is important. No one under 30 should be allowed on reality TV.

“Unfortunately, reality TV normally attracts the more vulnerable, as opposed to the more resilient. You have to be quite thick-skinned, and it’s hard. The online bullying that some of the crew members receive, or the ones I’ve heard about, is just awful.”

Despite her experience, Kelliher isn’t immune to the anxiety that comes with the making of the show, from the weeks spent filming to the moment it’s aired, months later.

“The whole year is a constant up and down of anxiety. There’s that fear of perception, that fear of negativity online… it’s a lot of anxiety over the year, and it comes in waves. But now I’m more prepared for it. I know it’s coming. I can feel really anxious but can remember I felt that way last year, and know that it’ll pass. I’m able to remind myself that it goes away, that it will be okay.”

There’s a moment in the new season where a distraught Kelliher cries, “Everything’s my fault. If the guests aren’t happy, it’s my fault. I can’t win. I’m constantly losing.” You don’t have to be a chief stew on a megayacht to relate to that statement. It’s a sentiment that I’m sure many people (women in particular) can identify with — the feeling that however hard you work, or however hard you try, you simply can’t win.

“It’s not my greatest season,” says Kelliher. “I cry an awful lot, which I don’t like to do. I think it will be really relatable, though. I think people will be able to relate to why I was getting upset and why I was feeling so much pressure. I’m constantly trying to please everyone. And then, when I feel like I haven’t, I feel like a failure.”

Tears and hook-ups aside, how does it feel when the trailer finally lands and she has to watch herself on screen? “I cringe, but overall I find it funny. I do hate watching, but I have to say, the trailers and every episode I’ve ever seen really make me laugh out loud.

“Every year, I think it’s going to be a normal, boring season. But it shocks me every time.”​

Season four of ‘Below Deck Sailing Yacht’ is now streaming on Hayu