Belenda Ryan calls her career so far her "rambling life."
She is Irish. She amends that to "very Irish." She grew up in east Cork, "a limestone region that is well known among potholers for its many underground caves." Her family home was near Cobh, famous for being the last port of call of the Titanic.
After high school and before she began nursing training in Dublin, she worked in a hospice in Cork. Her rambling life and her nursing life picked up and proceeded together.