Presenter Muireann O’Connell has revealed that her mam Marie was ‘devasted’ when her show was axed from Today FM.
Muireann tweeted back in July of last year that she had been ‘fired’ from the show, before DWTS winner Mairead Ronan took over the daytime slot.
Muireann recently revealed that losing the slot was a massive blow for her, saying, “I’ve lost jobs before the Today FM job and it’s always hard but this was very public and very out of the blue.
“There were various things in the background that I won’t or can’t go into.
“There was a little bit of vindication, I felt, because figures came out just shortly after that and it was like, ‘Ah great show’s going great’. God bless a few people I know in the industry who did a big deep dive for me to go, ‘This is what it looks like, this is what’s going on’.
“I was like, ‘Great’. It just helped my head a little bit but at the same time I couldn’t get out of bed for six months because it was just horrible.”
Muireann then revealed that she was most worried about her parents and their reaction to her leaving the station. Speaking to Sile Seoige on her Ready to be Real podcast, Muireann said, “I’m not married, I don’t have children so it’s not that distraction but everything about me is my parents. It really is, they’re my world I absolutely adore them.
“And you know parents put so much work into you and they’re so proud of you and they’re so happy for you.
“I just kept thinking about them being mortified and being embarrassed and having to talk to their friends and say what had gone on. That’s what I kept thinking about was my parents going, ‘Sure they’ve got to put up with this now’.
“People at 45 and in the GAA club at the weekend asking, ‘What happened there?’
“Because if I was getting it, they were certainly getting it as much as I was. My mum.. sure she was devastated, the poor woman was devastated. Brian was devastated as well but he was like, ‘Oh right OK come on you’re grand. It’s fine, move on. What’s next?’
“I just could not stop thinking about my parents because it was done nationally and we’re in a space now where radio probably, certainly the radio I was doing, wasn’t as important as it had been ten years ago.
“But yeah it was national heartbreak. We work in an industry where these things are going to happen, it’s just the way that it happened that sort of killed me.”