Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has opened up about the tragic loss of her friend during childbirth.
When her friend Ellen passed away 20 years ago, Ms McDonald herself was heavily pregnant with her first child.
During an episode of Doireann Garrihy’s podcast The Laughs of Your Life, she also spoke about her hysterectomy, “mansplaining” and her belief that she can be the next Taoiseach.
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When asked for her “no laughing matter” moment, Ms McDonald acknowledged the separation of her parents, which she described as “quite traumatic” for her family.
The Sinn Féin leader then spoke at length about the death of her friend Ellen during childbirth.
“Maybe one of the most difficult situations was actually when I was expecting my first child and my friend was expecting her second child and she died in childbirth,” she said.
“I was very heavily pregnant and I said, ‘I will get in to see Ellen. This will be great’. I had heard the baby had arrived. I was delighted.
“It was my birthday. My mother said, ‘No, no, you can go and see her later. Come with me’.
“I came home that evening to hear the news, my husband saying, ‘There's bad news’. “I thought it was the baby. He said, ‘No, Ellen died’.
“That was 20 years ago. My daughter will be 21. The baby was born and safe and beautiful. She'll turn 21 as well.
“But it's one of those episodes. Awful things can happen to you but at a remove, you can kind of rationalise them or you can see them in their wider context, the rhythm of life, the circle of life.
“That is one thing that I could never ever get my head around to this day that that actually happened.”
Ms McDonald said that she has remained in contact with her late friend’s family, who she said experienced a “life-altering” loss.
The Sinn Féin leader also admitted that the “significance” of the hysterectomy she underwent last summer “didn’t really land with her” as she was “so consumed” about how she was going to schedule her surgery.
She said that it “never occurred to me that things would be anything other than fine” until her doctors called to give her the call clear.
When asked about an occasion where she got the “last laugh”, Ms McDonald spoke about the “mansplaining” that occurred when she became Sinn Féin leader.
“There was nearly an assumption that actually a girl couldn't really be in charge or certainly couldn't be in charge of Sinn Féin,” she explained.
“I don't mind if you disagree with me. I don't mind if you think I've done some things right, some things wrong. I'm not always going to get it right.
“But I did have a little bit of an issue with an assumption being made that somehow I was in a position that I kind of just chanced my way into or fluked my way into it. That it wasn't really up to my job.
“I felt and feel after the last election, that kind of answered some of that back.”
She said that there was a view from outside the party that she was like a “puppet on a string” as the leader of the party.
When asked if she believed she would be the next Taoiseach, Ms McDonald said that she thinks she can be but that it is “not inevitable”.
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