Comedian PJ Gallagher: 'If my parents never had the booze, we ...

Born in Bessborough, adopted by alcoholics, sharing a home with schizophrenia patients — PJ Gallagher spent a lifetime laughing off his childhood traumas. Then, in 2021, he had a serious mental breakdown. Here, the comic opens up about his chaotic upbringing, being hospitalised and finally having a place to call home

You’ll often hear a new parent refer to their new life as ‘bedlam’ or ‘like living in a madhouse’. Eight weeks ago, PJ Gallagher and his partner Kelly Doolin welcomed their twins Milo and Stevie. But you probably won’t hear the 48-year-old say any of this about new fatherhood because, in his own words, he literally grew up in a ‘madhouse’.

Alongside his parents Helen and Sean, Gallagher grew up in the 1970s and 1980s— surrounded by people with severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia, depression and bipolar disorder. His mother, a nurse who trained in the UK, opened the family’s Clontarf home to psychiatric patients from the local hospital as part of a ‘care in the community’ arrangement.