When singer Mary Coughlan turned 60 last year, she didn't feel like having a party. "I was looking back on my diary from that time and I noticed that on the 23rd May last year I said, 'I think I'm dying'."
As it turned out, Mary was seriously ill with a heart condition. As she told Marian Finucane on Saturday, she had 99pc and 97pc blockages in one artery and 60pc and 40pc blockages in the other. "I should have been a goner," she said, "I couldn't walk a hundred steps."
It was the latest in a series of illnesses Mary suffered from in the last few years. In 2014 she was diagnosed with bronchiectasis, a condition where the airways of the lung become abnormally enlarged.
In the midst of her illness, Mary had a moment of realisation when she read Bessel van der Kolk's 'The Body Keeps the Score', which links emotional trauma to ailments and illness in the body. She began to make connections between her physical health and the trauma of the sexual abuse she suffered as a child.
"I know that I've always had a broken heart since I was a very small child and it's no coincidence that I was also diagnosed with a lung disease. Grief is the thing that resides in your lung."
Mary began a tough course of behavioural therapy, which has allowed her to work through her grief instead of shutting it out. It has also allowed her to remember the good times she had with her mother.
"I wanted to remember the love she had for me and that I felt from her," she said, "Ma was always singing. She taught me how to sing."
Mary is currently in the process of organising her 60th birthday party, which will take place on her 61st birthday on May 5th, 2017. She's feeling much better, she said, and she's back on the road touring.
You can listen back to the full interview here