Right from my very first drink I was an alcoholic... I always had a reason to lift up the glass... then it was the glass or me
Singer O’donnell opens up on rehab battle & broken heart
I promised I’d look after my family and destroyed myself trying to keep that
MARGO O’DONNELL ON RTE’S KEYS TO MY LIFE
MARGO O’donnell has opened up about her 10-year battle with booze and drugs which ended with a stint in rehab.
The country music singer told how her addiction spiralled out of control after her boyfriend “jilted” her and called off their wedding.
Margo, who had just bought a home in Dublin at the time, later turned to drink and painkillers and a long struggle with addiction resulted in her seeking treatment.
She said: “It was a time in my life when I needed to get things together.
“I had just come out of a broken relationship and to be honest with you, if I wasn’t so modest, he left me.
“He jilted me. My pride was hurt. You know, how could this fella do this to me? Then, you know, the wedding fell through so I was just probably finding a place to find myself.”
Speaking on RTE Keys To My Life, Margo added she bought her house on impulse following the split.
She said: “I would say, simply say, yes I did. I panic-bought this house. And when I came here I was brokenhearted, or I thought I was. Another monkey had let me down.”
Margo, now aged 67, felt the walls of the house protected her from the outside world as she dealt with her own personal demons.
She explained: “When I started drinking in 1974, from the very first drink, I was an alcoholic.
“I had a fear of the stage and I thought I had found my crutch. There was always a reason for lifting the glass until there was no reason and it was either the glass or me.
“It was a very lonely, stupid period. I was blaming dad for having left me, because I did promise my father the day he died I would look after my mother and my siblings. I destroyed myself by trying to carry that promise.” Margo bravely overcame her addiction and eventually went into rehab but the death of her father is something she still carries with her. Francie was a huge influence in her life, leaving her devastated when he died suddenly, aged just 49. She said: “He wasn’t ill, he wasn’t ill at all. One particular evening, he said, ‘Margaret, I’m tired’.
“He said to me, ‘Kneel down there beside me’, he was lying in the bed and he said, ‘I want you to promise you will look after mam and the wee ones’.
“That was the day my life changed for ever.
“And it was here that I first walked out that door and got into the bandwagon with the Keynotes when I wasn’t just quite 13.”
With the burden of supporting her family back in Donegal following his death, Margo had no option but to work hard playing gigs around the country and recording albums.
But she was always very nervous going on stage because she didn’t choose the career path for herself.
She said: “I didn’t like to be in the limelight and I didn’t like showbusiness at all.
“That’s the road we decided I would go. I didn’t have a choice – 100 pound a week that time was a lot of money.
“If my father had lived I wouldn’t have done this.
“My dream was always marriage, settling down and kids and a nice home.”
In 1984, her now famous brother Daniel dropped out of business college in Galway and Margo was asked by their mother to take him under her wing and get him into the music industry. He moved into her box room in Ballinteer, Dublin, and his career began to take off after Margo paved the way for him. She said: “I was afraid for Daniel coming into the music business but shortly after he came with me I could see people were coming to hear him.” However, their regular stage performances together on television resulted in tabloid obsession with the family. Margo said: “They were saying
things about me being Daniel’s mother. “I would have been 10 when I had him. “We would have been in the circus, the two of us then. It didn’t hurt us but it did hurt mam.” Margo grew up in the Donegal fishing village of Kincasslagh and it was a very happy household until the sad death of her father. She added: “First of all it was just John and I that were here and then Kathleen was born.
“And then James came along of course and Daniel was the last.
“We used to get milk from a man out the mountain.
“I remember one particular time we were going out for the milk on the Sunday and my mother made us bring Kathleen.
“So the boys were able to get their hands on five Woodbine. Right. She started saying, ‘I’ll tell’. The only thing we could do is make Kathleen smoke too.
Well, she was only three. And she was walking around like, you know, like dizzy.
“The one thing I probably remember a lot about my childhood here, as my mother was an island woman, there was a lot of fishing going on down at the harbour.
“There were a lot of times they would be out and there would be a storm and they couldn’t get home and we would always have to give up our beds.
“She would put mattresses on the floor for us. There were times
when there would probably be 17 or 20 people here sleeping. Nobody was ever turned away.
“And there was always singing. My father was a very young-atheart man and he sang, I would sing.
“We never knew the house empty. We were so beautifully happy there.”
Margo now shares her forever home in Monaghan with close friend and assistant Shirley.
Her six-year feud with Daniel is over after the pair were reunited on the hit show.
Keys To My Life airs on RTE One at 8.30pm tonight.
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I didn’t like the limelight and didn’t like showbusiness but I didn’t have a choice
MARGO O’DONNELL ON RTE’S KEYS TO MY LIFE