‘It wasn’t the life I planned’ – Majella O’Donnell opens up on mental health struggles & 10 weeks in psychiatric care

MAJELLA O’Donnell was on the Late Late Show tonight to talk about her recent mental health struggles.

Co Down comic Patrick Kielty was back tonight with a star-studded line-up of TV stars and Irish icons.

First up on the couch tonight was Irish rock band The Hothouse Flowers, who were marking their 40th year in the music industry.

They sat down for a chat with Patrick and delighted audiences with two numbers.

Elsewhere on the show, Majella O’Donnell, wife of Daniel, joined Kielty to talk about her mental health struggles.

The Tipperary native has struggled with clinical depression since her late teens and has been on on medication since her mid 30s.

Majella said she “always” managed to get herself “out of a rut” on her own up until 2024 when she went “back to that dark old place” again.

She told Patrick: “I’m feeling really good now, I did have a very, very bad patch in 2024 with mental health problems, i.e. depression, which has been a part of my life for most of my life, certainly since my late teens.

“But I’ve always managed to deal with it myself. I’ve always managed to come out of my low points.”

One of her lowest was in her thirties after her first divorce to her husband, Raymond McLennan.

She said: “I started taking medication when I was in my mid 30s. After my marriage breakdown which was very, very tough on me. 


“And I genuinely did not think I could go on. I had two very young children. I was alone. It wasn’t the life I had planned for myself.

“I saw myself marrying this person and growing older with them and then suddenly, and not from my decision, it was all up in smoke and you’re suddenly there with two young children thinking, ‘God, this is not what I wanted at all’, and I got very low, very, very, very low.”

Another low point for her was 2024 when she had to take a 10-week stay in a psychiatric hospital to lift herself out of her depressive episode.

‘I WAS A VEGETABLE’

She explained: “In 2024, I got to a place that I thought I could not come out of myself. “

Majella explained that when she would suffer from depression she would retreat from anyone and anything.

She continued: “Daniel would have to do the shopping; he’d have to cook for himself. I was just like a vegetable, but I just needed that time to kind of recalibrate or whatever, just to try and start to feel okay again.”

However unlike other times when she suffered from depression, Majella knew she wouldn’t be able to lift herself out of this rut.

Majella said: “And I just knew, I said, ‘I can’t do this anymore’. I’m tired of dealing with it, and I don’t want to deal with it anymore.”

“And Dan said ,’We need to go up and see the GP’.

“I went to the GP thankfully and he suggested it. He said to me, ‘have we ever considered a residential stay in a hospital,’ and I said, ‘No, absolutely not’. 


‘ANYTHING TO HELP’

“I just didn’t think I was a candidate to go into a psychiatric hospital.

“Maybe I thought you had to be, you know, completely off your head.”

Majella explained that she was just looking for someone else to come in and guide her through her depression.

Majella told: “I thought anything, anything that can help, because I know I’ve given up, and I have relinquished everything to the powers that be – doctor, psychiatrists, whatever – help me now, because I can’t help myself anymore.

‘IN TEARS’

“And I went into the hospital, and I can remember the day I went in and I was in tears.

“I was in reception and a friend brought me in because the difficulty there already. Daniel brings you in and people are going to be, ‘Oh look, it’s Daniel O’Donnell’.

“Like a bag of nerves, I was just rocking and saying, ‘I can’t stay here, I don’t like it. I’m afraid’. I was crying, and then the nurses came out, and they were just wonderful.

“They were really kind, they said, ‘You’ll be okay’, and they took me to a room, and I settled in and everything, and that was all fine, but I didn’t come out of it for three days.

“I just didn’t want to see anybody. I had nothing to say. I didn’t want to eat. I just wanted to crawl up and into a ball and die.”