The ‘Minding You’ theme was front and centre at this year’s Women & Agriculture conference, held in Sligo on Thursday 23 October.
A health panel, supported by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, and chaired by Irish Country Living health journalist Rosalind Skillen, heard from Galway woman Mona O’Donoghue Concannon who shared her experience of trying to mind herself amid her husband’s struggle with his mental health.
Mona, who is a full-time carer for her adult brother, and mother of a daughter, received a standing ovation from delegates after she spoke of how ongoing depression and struggles with the transfer of the family farm led her husband to attempt suicide.
“My husband was under massive pressure trying to balance farm life with family life and although the farm was transferred into his name in 2014, we discovered soon after that it hadn’t been done properly and that is when things really started to deteriorate.
“We were both working on the farm one day when I got a call from his sister, who told me that he was sitting on the river bank and had called her to say goodbye. I drove over to where he was and it took us 45 minutes to get him off the river bank.
“He had been taking medication for depression but it wasn’t working so we called the GP who was wonderful and we got him the treatment he needed. He was diagnosed with situational depression, the cause of which was the farm.”
Mona O'Donoghue Concannon speaking at Women & Agriculture conference 2025. \ Philip Doyle
Life too short
Mona and her family went through 15 months of hell, with a court case and his family shunning him and she felt she had nowhere to turn.
“When we were going through mediation, a counsellor told me that I had to get him off the farm or I would be taking him off the farm in a coffin.”
The family left their home, which they had built, and everything behind to start afresh in a new rented home, still within reach of their daughter’s school.
“If I can share our story, and for it make one person think about the value of relationships over land, then it will be worth it,” she said.
“My husband wasn’t welcome at his sister’s wedding and while he did speak to his father on his deathbed, he wasn’t allowed to carry his coffin and he was excluded from standing with the family in the funeral home.
“Land will be there after we’re all gone, but relationships are too precious to destroy. Life is too short so if things are not going well, and you are struggling, have the conversation. Talk it out.”
The ‘Minding You’ theme was front and centre at this year’s Women & Agriculture conference, held in Sligo on Thursday 23 October.
A health panel, supported by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, and chaired by Irish Country Living health journalist Rosalind Skillen, heard from Galway woman Mona O’Donoghue Concannon who shared her experience of trying to mind herself amid her husband’s struggle with his mental health.
Mona, who is a full-time carer for her adult brother, and mother of a daughter, received a standing ovation from delegates after she spoke of how ongoing depression and struggles with the transfer of the family farm led her husband to attempt suicide.
“My husband was under massive pressure trying to balance farm life with family life and although the farm was transferred into his name in 2014, we discovered soon after that it hadn’t been done properly and that is when things really started to deteriorate.
“We were both working on the farm one day when I got a call from his sister, who told me that he was sitting on the river bank and had called her to say goodbye. I drove over to where he was and it took us 45 minutes to get him off the river bank.
“He had been taking medication for depression but it wasn’t working so we called the GP who was wonderful and we got him the treatment he needed. He was diagnosed with situational depression, the cause of which was the farm.”
Mona O'Donoghue Concannon speaking at Women & Agriculture conference 2025. \ Philip Doyle
Life too short
Mona and her family went through 15 months of hell, with a court case and his family shunning him and she felt she had nowhere to turn.
“When we were going through mediation, a counsellor told me that I had to get him off the farm or I would be taking him off the farm in a coffin.”
The family left their home, which they had built, and everything behind to start afresh in a new rented home, still within reach of their daughter’s school.
“If I can share our story, and for it make one person think about the value of relationships over land, then it will be worth it,” she said.
“My husband wasn’t welcome at his sister’s wedding and while he did speak to his father on his deathbed, he wasn’t allowed to carry his coffin and he was excluded from standing with the family in the funeral home.
“Land will be there after we’re all gone, but relationships are too precious to destroy. Life is too short so if things are not going well, and you are struggling, have the conversation. Talk it out.”
SHARING OPTIONS