Rosie O'Donnell says Irish roots trip changed her life forever

Irish visit explained her family's past to her for first time

By

CAHIR O'DOHERTY,

Irish Voice Reporter

Larger Text

Print

E-mail

15 Comments

Rosie O'Donnell

Photo by Harpo

Tweet

‘Rosie O’Donnell has revealed how her trips to trace her roots in Ireland changed the way she looked at life. She took part in an NBC  series ‘Who Do You Think You Are’  tracing those roots and it had a profound impact, she told Irish Voice.

“Doing that show really did change my life in a huge way because I really did identify as being Irish.  Both my parents are Irish. It was a huge part of my identity. We all have Claddagh rings; my mother had one as her wedding ring,” she says.

O’Donnell adds that her oldest brother, Eddie, has always been very connected to all of parts of their late mother’s family; she passed away from breast cancer in 1973 when Rosie was 10, which, at the time they still knew comparatively little about.

“When they asked me (to go to Ireland) I asked them if I could bring my brother? I wanted to get closer to him. We’re a family that had no mom and had a dad that was stoic and typically Irish in that he was disconnected,” O’Donnell says.

“The five of us were like the hands of a fist. There wasn’t a lot of I love you’s growing up. You know, typically Irish, right?

“I wanted to get to that with my brother and we did. When we got off the plane at Kennedy he said, ‘I love you,’ and I said, ‘I love you too Eddie.’ Those were the words that were never really heard in my house growing up, but they’re heard daily with my children and myself. But with my siblings it’s still difficult.

“That show really broke the ice in a lot of ways, and I’m very grateful to producer Lisa Kudrow and to all the amazing people I met in Ireland. Actually I’m going to go and spend time in the holidays there with my little kids this year.”

The thing that broke her heart was how deeply the trip had resonated with her own children.

“You know what was really fascinating? My children are all adopted. And when I came home and told them the story they took it as their own.

“They were saying, ‘So you mean my great, great grandfather was in the poor house?’ And I was like, ‘Yes honey, he was.’  I got all choked up. They asked, ‘Could we go and see that place Mom?’ So we’re going over to Ireland for the holidays this year.”

“I do think that Irish part of me is very true. You call it like you see it, and in our family you were allowed to talk about things that were very emotional as long as you were funny, if you made a joke about it, but lord knows you couldn’t just bring up a feeling,” she laughs.

In Who Do You Think You Are?, the NBC show that traces the family roots of famous people, These days O’Donnell finds herself more interested in being a good mother or using her fame as a springboard for doing something worthwhile.

“When I was in my thirties it blew my mind that I could know people like Tom Cruise and Barbra Streisand,” O’Donnell tells the Irish Voice from the Oprah Winfrey studios in Chicago, “but now I’m 50 and my perspective has completely changed.”

Print

E-mail

Tweet