Her father Patrick ‘Paddy’ McDonald died in August and the party leader spoke last week about a “tough year” during which her husband, Martin Lanigan, was diagnosed with bowel cancer while she was recovering from a hysterectomy.
Speaking at the National Ploughing Championships in Ratheniska, Co Laois, Ms McDonald said the loss of her father has “changed how I see the world, not to mind politics”.
“I’ve met people over the years and honest to god, I’ve wondered, ‘How do they manage? How do they get up in the morning and put one foot in front of the other?’ And yet they do,” she said.
“It’s only when you get a lot of curveballs, a lot of challenges coming in your life all at once that you actually have to stop speculating and start living and actually doing it.
“It’s changed how I see the world. Bereavement is a game changer, cancer coming into a household, as everyone will know, changes everything – not just for the person themselves but for the whole family.”
On whether the experience has changed her politically, she said that is “for others to judge”, adding: “I have a renewed and incredibly deep respect for carers, for people who care in our health system, for family home carers, I think they are amazing people and I think politically there hasn’t been the correct response to that and I’m determined that there will.”
She said she is “still the same” and “still up and at it”, with “normal business” resuming with the return of the Dáil tomorrow.
“Has it changed me? Yeah, I mean, how could it not?,” she said.
Ms McDonald also said the party is going to work “very hard” to respond to the “very clear message” it received from the communities it represents during the local elections in June.
“You have to earn people’s trust and their supper and that means you have to be out talking to them and engaging them – and it will ebb and flow. So, if it’s ebbing, we need to make it flow again, so we’re going to work really hard,” she said.
Speaking at the National Ploughing Championships in Ratheniska, Co Laois today, Ms McDonald said the event gives “a sense of the temperature in rural Ireland and in the farming community in particular”.
She added that the “big conversation” in the community is currently around sustainability and succession on farms, preparing for the next generation and the “real fear” that young people may not see the industry as viable or attractive.
Ms McDonald said the “false divide” that those in rural Ireland are less progressive in terms of climate compared to those in urban areas is “absolutely not true” and farming communities face “very significant challenges”.
“They’re frustrated with some of the inefficiencies in the system and they’re frustrated, of course, with bureaucracy and paperwork. This is a common complaint across society,” she said.
She described the mood as “good” with a need to focus on the viability, sustainability and future of Irish farms, with a need to “defend” them.
