Serca Darcy was only 34 when she found a lump in her breast. What led the Dubliner to check was a very slight burning sensation that she found unusual but still, she thought little of it when she went to see her GP.
‘When I went to the GP, the GP, of course, referred me straight away to St James’s Hospital the doctor did an examination and said “I can feel the lump.
‘I can also feel other lumps, but you’re under 35, so we wouldn’t be rushing to give you a mammogram.” But I was unsure and I didn’t want it weighing on my mind.
Serca, a mother of two young boys Lux, five, and Zay who is just three, was in good health. She went to the gym four days a week and didn’t feel in any way ill.
‘This was in October 2025 and when she found out she wouldn’t get a mammogram until May of this year she decided to go private.
‘I decided I wanted to have it out of the way – I think the scan cost €180 and I went to St James Private Hospital and had the mammogram in two weeks,’ Serca says.
What she wasn’t expecting was to be called back for a biopsy and then be told, just two days before Christmas that she had breast cancer.
‘It was December 23 when I got my results,’ she says.
’It was awful. Looking back now I’m like of course they’re they wouldn’t be calling me in on that day for nothing, but I wasn’t going into it really worried.
‘I was just thinking I was gonna go in and get the all clear and then it would be fine but I was diagnosed with ER-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer.
‘Receiving that diagnosis just before Christmas was something I never imagined would happen to me.
‘I was a busy mum of two young boys and ran my own hair salon, so cancer was the last thing on my mind.
Serca Darcy: ‘I was a busy mum of two young boys and ran my own hair salon, so cancer was the last thing on my mind’
‘The diagnosis turned my world upside down and brought with it fears and uncertainties about my health, my family and the future.’
Serca found out she would have to get months of treatment and so decided to step away from her small but busy hairdressing salon on Dublin’s Camden Street.
‘I worked through January and then I did IVF because the ER Positive side of my cancer means oestrogen feeds the cancer so I’m on hormone blockers, um, and they put you into a medicated menopause.
‘So I have embryos frozen if I want to have any more kids. And then it was one thing after another. I had to close my business because it was busy but small and couldn’t run without me which was really hard.
‘In February 2026, I underwent a mastectomy with immediate reconstruction using an expander.
‘Going into surgery, I believed I had a single tumour, but the final pathology results revealed six tumours in total as well as widespread abnormal cells throughout the breast.
‘Cancer was also found in one of my lymph nodes. Receiving those results was incredibly difficult and made the diagnosis feel much more serious than I had first thought.’
In April Serca started chemotherapy and with the support of her family and friends she got through the summer – her husband Sean’s busy period as he works in event management.
‘’Chemo was hard – it knocked me especially the first kind of chemo I had,’ she says.
‘Your whole body is completely exhausted. That was the hardest part. But then mentally, the hardest part is the worry for my scans.’
Serca is currently doing radiotherapy and in two weeks her treatment will be finished.
‘I haven’t told my kids anything which has been a bit of a blessing as I have just carried on as normal,’ she says.
‘I have a lot of friends and family around me who live close to me – my in-laws and my parents, and then close friends who all jumped in to help me.’
‘’Chemo was hard – it knocked me especially the first kind of chemo I had,’ she says.
Losing her hair was tough too, as being a hairdresser was tied into Serca’s identity.
‘I don’t recognise myself at all in the mirror. My body has completely changed. I’ve had a mastectomy, I look completely different to what I looked like this time last year. But my hair is starting to grow back now.’
Serca has been documenting her journey on Instagram – initially so that she could let friends and family know what was going on, but soon people started to follow her journey, many of them going through something similar themselves.
‘Because I was young, if I hadn’t gone private and had waited seven months for my mammogram I wouldn’t be in the same position because during the mastectomy, they found those six tumours which hadn’t shown up in the mammogram.
‘So if I had waited until say May or June of this year, it would have spread and I just want to try and raise awareness that young women can get breast cancer too,’ she says.
’And I want to explain to people what it’s like to go through this.’
Serca is an Ambassador for the 4TH ARQ x Breast Cancer Ireland 2026 Collaboration marking Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
The collaboration sees the launch of two limited-edition Maddox Fleece Half-Zips under Rosie Connolly Quinn’s successful 4TH ARQ brand, with all profits from the sale of the new Half-Zips in both Fuchsia and Bubblegum Pink going towards the development of an additional Ultrasound Room at Beaumont Breast Centre Dublin, helping to significantly reduce ultrasound waiting lists.
‘Through the Breast Cancer Ireland campaign I also connected with a lot of women in the same position as me, which was also lovely.
‘You don’t really know what it’s like until you’re going through it so it is really nice to connect to and to kind of find tips on how to help with side effects and so on.’
This launch marks the brand’s third successful collaboration with Breast Cancer Ireland, having previously launched a limited-edition pink tracksuit in October 2021 raising €73,000 for the charity, and subsequently raising an incredible €104,000 in 2024 following the launch of a pink fleece which sold out in a matter of just minutes!
Serca and her fellow ambassadors Vivienne Onyeme, Rachel Byrne and Dara Madden are delighted to be promoting the €40 fleeces from entrepreneur Rosie Connolly’s firm which are available now with a small embroidered pink ribbon design on the reverse.
And now Serca is hopeful that her next scans will be clear in a few weeks.
‘I just want other women to remember to check their breasts and if they find a lump, to act on it,’ she says.
‘No matter what age you are, if you feel uneasy about something, go and get it checked out.’
