I was born into an Irish Catholic family, the third of four children born in quick succession. It was a busy household, noisy, we didn’t have a lot of money. My dad was a buyer for computer firms. He’s emotionally reticent, quiet. I think he was shy as a boy and had a bad stammer and his mother had a lot of children and was hard pushed to care for them all. My mum, a nurse, a cleaner then a home help, is very Irish — great fun, twinkly, gregarious, really maternal. Even now when I’m ill I say “Mammeee!” I feel for my parents because I’ve offered them many challenges and they’ve risen to them and been incredibly understanding.

I had a boyfriend from when I was 17 to 22. At university I studied drama and a course on feminist theatre made me see the relationship between men and women differently. I read a pamphlet by Adrienne Rich called Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence and she posits the theory that heterosexuality is a construct and we need not necessarily be heterosexual. It set me thinking and I suppose I thought lesbianism was a natural extension of my politics. I believe people when they say they feel they were born gay but I wasn’t and I don’t feel I was denying anything when I was straight.

For 12 years I was in and out of long-term relationships, and there was never any question that I was a lesbian. I think some people are more naturally sexually fluid than others, and I was put in contact with influences that I was ready to experience. There was a hard-core element in the lesbian world that I felt was dictatorial and intimidating. This was the late Eighties — it was suspect if you liked something that was very male, apart from drinking and women. So in some respects it was like unreconstructed maleness, in other respects it was this very bullish “thou shalt not”, which was the opposite of the sapphic fluffy nirvana I expected.

For me there was something implosive about being with another woman. I wanted that male-female polarity, so I jumped back again. I went out with Tim Fountain, the director, who was gay when I met him and a pain in the arse in the nicest possible way. For me it was two fingers up to everything, but it was a halfway house — I never felt he was going to present me with heterosexual expectations.

Richard, my partner, was the fire officer at the arts centre where I was doing a show four years ago. He’s very handsome and he told me off for having my dog in the building. I told him to piss off. Later in the bar he congratulated me on the show and I said: “You’re my toy now; come and sit with me,” which he did.

He’s extremely capable, he’s a lorry driver but he also loves cooking and he’s a fantastic ironer. Even my knickers. He’s a very northern hairy bloke but very nurturing. He’s extremely laid back, sometimes irritatingly so. We’re close but not in a slushy way, we’re very side by side, which I’ve never had before. Always been adversarial things going on.

I got pregnant accidentally on purpose — I felt settled with him. Both of us felt that an only child was a bit sad, and then after ten weeks of my second pregnancy they said: “You’ve three in there.” It was shocking and horrifying and exciting. They’re fantastic, we’re both shattered but the babies are good, so cute — you don’t feel hard done by.

At the moment we’re a bit like two people on a jobshare, but we still manage to have a laugh. I never know how to answer the question of whether my sexuality is sorted because knowing that I feel so settled it would feel odd to discuss any possible future partner, male or female. So yeah, it is really.

The story of Jackie Clune’s triplets is told in 3 x A Baby, Discovery Home & Health, Sunday October 30, 5pm.