Majella O’Donnell has made a powerful plea to anyone experiencing mental health issues, as part of her appearance last night on the Late Late Show.
She bravely spoke to host Patrick Kielty about her history of mental health issues, and her recent stay in a psychiatric unit in 2024.
For Majella, mental health illnesses have been present for most of her life.
“I did have a rough patch in 2024, but mental health problems, i.e. depression, have been a part of my life for most of my life, certainly since my late teens I have battled with depression,” she said.
“But I have always managed to deal with it myself, I’ve always managed to come out of my low points. I started taking medication in my mid-30s after my marriage breakdown which was very, very tough on me. I geniunely did not think I could go on when that happened.”
“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 old with them, and suddenly, not from my decision, it was all up in smoke and you’re there with two young children thinking ‘God, this is not what I wanted at all.’”
“I got very low, very, very, very low, very low to a point that I just thought that I’d like to get out of it all. I didn’t think; ‘God, I won’t do that because I have two young children,’ because I genuinely believed that they would be better off without me.”
Majella also opened up about her recent troubles, and her realisation that for the first time, she alone could not manage her own mental health without more assistance.
“In 2024 I got to a place that I thought I could not come out of.”
“Before, when I got into those situations I would retreat, I might stay on the setee for days on end, Daniel would have to do the shopping, he’d have to cook for himself, I was just like a vegetable on the setee but I just needed that time to myself, that time to recalibrate, just try to start and feel okay again.”
“It didn’t happen this time. I just was sitting in the corner, and I said: ‘I can’t do this anymore. I just cannot do this anymore, I’m tired of dealing with it and I don’t want to deal with it anymore.’”
“Daniel said ‘Will you go up and see the GP?,’ and I was like ‘I’m on medication, what can I do?’”
At that visit, her GP recommended a residential stay at a psychiatric unit to Majella for the first time, an option she had not even considered.
“I, actually, was delighted, because I thought (that) anything could help, because I know I’ve given up, and I relinquished everything to the powers that be, doctors, psychiatrists, whatever – help me now because I can’t help myself anymore.”
Majella detailed her stay, saying that she did not even appear out of her room in her residential treatment for three days – and that it took five weeks for her to phone her husband, Daniel, as she had “nothing to say” and was “dead.”
“I sent a text, I said ‘I love you all,’ but the biggest thing (was) I (had) nothing to say to anybody, I (was) just dead. So please just give me the time to try and come back to life life again… I had no joy in my own grandchildren, in my own children.”
“At home, if you have any struggles – and I’m purely talking about my experience – it was so worth doing, and if you are that person who’s feeling really, really low, go to your GP, go to them, tell them how you feel, tell them what you need, and just give it up – I relinquished everything to them.”
Majella then appealled directly to anyone who may currently experiencing their own difficulties they fear they cannot get out of, to reach out – and expressed her hope that the stigma around mental health illnesses may disappear altogether.
“Please God, in 20-30 years’ time, maybe not in my lifetime, we will be talking about depression and mental health illness as if we were talking about cancer. There’s no shame in it, and that’s why I’m happy to talk about it. It’s not my fault.”
“Don’t ever feel (that it’s your fault). I’ll go and tell anybody, ‘Yes, I was in a psychiatric hospital!’ Yep, I was – and they fixed me, and that’s ok. Don’t ever, ever feel shameful about it.”
“I’m looking down the camera and I’m saying it to you all out there, never feel ashamed for having mental health problems, because we’re human.”
“I come out and I talk about things like this, and I know I get the keyboard warriors, and I’ve seen them and I’ve read things, and they’re horrible.
“And to people like that I would say, you know, when you’re critical to somebody on social media online, you’re not criticising their opinions, you’re criticising that person, and that person, without you knowing, may be just hanging on to life.”
“They may be very vulnerable… and your words – those words of ‘She’s looking for attention’, all those things – they’re not helpful, they’re hurtful. So please, think twice before you comment on people…”
“Never feel ashamed for having mental health problems” – Majella O’Donnell’s Late Late plea was last modified: February 7th, 2026 by Daniel Brennan
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