Megan O’Neill: 'My daughter’s arrival helped with the grief of losing my dad, it was bittersweet'
Megan O'Neill: "When you become a parent, you start to understand what your parents did for you, what they gave up and sacrificed for you, and how much they loved you." Picture: Róisín Murphy O’Sullivan.
When I reflect back on my daughter’s birth in the Coombe, March 2024, the point at which my whole world shifted wasn’t the exact moment she came out – you’re in shock then, you’ve been through this traumatic experience.
It was that night in the hospital when everything had kind of calmed down. I just vividly remember staring at her, for however long a time passed. I’d never experienced this depth of love before, or even thought it possible… to love that deeply.
An experience of almost feeling my heart grow in real time, it’s very hard to put into words, but like I felt my whole world expand in those hours, and my identity changed – all of a sudden, I wasn’t just me, but a mother. And my husband and I weren’t just a couple, but a family.
And all the thoughts – responsibility, fear, and I hope I don’t f*ck it up, I hope I know how to do it.
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Before I had her, I probably thought the same things would matter to me as much after she came, even from a career perspective – I’d very much lived my life putting career first, when you work in music, you kind of have to.
And of course I’m going to continue playing shows and pushing forward with music, but what shifted for me was the weight of it all – and in a really positive way – I enjoy it much more now, it’s not as much pressure as before.
But that night in the hospital was a real oxytocin rush, a real sense of my identity and my world just shifting in a massive way – it changed my perspective on everything.
In the months following, I developed a much deeper appreciation of what it is to be a parent. When you become a parent, you start to understand what your parents did for you, what they gave up and sacrificed for you, and how much they loved you.
And it has been bittersweet, becoming a parent and not being able to share that with my dad. He passed away when I was six weeks pregnant, the summer before I had my daughter. He had a neurological condition… been sick for about 10 years.
Though I knew at that stage I was expecting, he didn’t. Losing him… those first few months of pregnancy were just a fog. A part of me wanted to drown my sorrows, to be able to run from the grief, and I couldn’t do that because I had this gorgeous little human inside me who had to take priority.
It was tragic that he didn’t get to be part of it. It’s absolutely what he would have wanted, what he would have loved to see. He was a big family man; family was number one for him, and he’d have loved to see the continuation of his family.
My daughter’s arrival massively helped with the grief. For all of my family, she brought a lightness, a joy, something to bring us all together that was pure happiness. She still does.
I don’t think her birth meant I accepted his death more. I was just pulled in a different direction; I didn’t have as much time. There’s so little time to be in your own head because you have to focus on your baby all the time – a friend calls these years the ‘endurance years’, and it’s true.
My dad was just such a wonderful person. When great people pass away young, you feel a real question around that. I still find it incredibly difficult to grasp the finality of death, to comprehend in my logical mind that he’s not here. It’s very hard to think about the finality… and what happens when you go.
All I can do is carry him with me through it all and make sure my kids know about him – I’m expecting my second child now – and that he stays very much present. There’s so much of him in my daughter because there’s so much of him in me, so it will naturally come out in her. She’s just as stubborn and strong-willed as he was.
It’s hard when he’s not physically present, but I think he’s with us and he’s part of that next phase of life, and that’s my own belief.
When my dad was sick, someone said, ‘a byproduct of grief is gratitude’. I thought: Are you mad? How can gratitude ever be something you would feel after you lose somebody important? Now, having been through it, I find that it actually is. Because grief makes you very aware of what you’re lucky enough to be here to experience.
I’m very content personally in my life at the moment. I feel very grateful to be where I am and in what I have. My dad’s passing, my daughter’s birth – they go hand-in-hand to be honest, the full circle of life.
- Singer-songwriter Megan O’Neill’s new EP, , was written during a period of profound change, grief, and quiet reckoning. Across three intimate tracks, O’Neill captures the emotional disorientation of loss and the fragile moments of connection and curiosity that can exist within it. Visither site
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