Taoiseach Micheál Martin has opened up about the tragic death of his young daughter Leana during a candid interview with Ryan Tubridy.
The 64-year-old’s seven-year-old daughter passed away at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London back in 2010.
Her death came 11 years after Micheál and his wife Mary lost their son Ruairí to cot death at just five weeks old.
Speaking on The Bookshelf with Ryan Tubridy podcast, the Taoiseach described that time as a “very bleak period” in his life.
He said: “We had terrible personal trauma in our lives when we lost Leana, in particular. We lost Rory earlier in 1999. Along with losing Leana back in 2010, we had the [financial] crash as well.
“That was a very bleak period in life. You had to kind of come through that, and you weren’t.. I have to be honest, whether one was doing it as rationally as one would like to think in hindsight is an open question.”
The Cork native said the support of his family and their community helped ease his grief.
“With Leana, having had an earlier traumatic hit which you don’t expect in life, I think that all that kind of thing helped,” he explained.
“If I know of someone who’s gone through a period, or if they’ve lost someone, I say, ‘Look, get routine into your life’. It’s very basic. Get out, walk, get back to nature.
“I find I did a lot of walking. It’s probably why I’m walking so much now. I haven’t got off the walking. I could walk miles and it gave me something. I’d walk the fields that I used to walk with Leana in West Cork.”
“I used to be telling stories to Leana when she was a child,” he continued. “I’d tell this great story about the bull threatening her older sister, and the bull coming down the field, and Leana stood up to the bull.
“Leana had every word of that off by heart when I said it at night, going to bed. I remember one night I left out ‘Leana looked at the bull’ and, you know, you’re half falling asleep when you’re telling stories…
“Leana said, ‘Ferociously’, because I left out the word ferociously. She was seven at the time,” he added.
