MAIREAD MCGUINNESS HAS revealed that she was diagnosed with severe post-viral syndrome last year, which led her to withdraw from the presidential race last August.

Fine Gael’s first-choice candidate, McGuinness was tipped to succeed Michael D Higgins in the early stages of the race, but felt she had to drop out and focus on recovery.

Speaking to Brendan O’Connor on RTÉ Radio 1, she said the diagnosis was a “bolt from the blue” and the symptoms left her “completely emaciated”.

Severe post-viral syndrome is a debilitating condition that can occur after an infection. Symptoms include extreme fatigue, brain fog and pain.

McGuinness compared the illness to being “burnt out”.

“It’s almost as if every part of you was raw, and you’re not able to do normal things,” she explained.

“You reach a point where you just can’t keep going. I don’t think I’d ever been at that point before.

I’m glad there aren’t photos of what it looked like. I was emaciated.

Making the decision to quit her run for president was difficult at first, but easy in the end, McGuinness said.

“Do I try to keep going knowing that I wasn’t well … or do I face the reality that it’s either your health or this race?

“The one thing we all realise is your health is your wealth,” she said.

McGuinness said once the party became aware of her illness, “they were very good and very decent”.

She said that while her privacy was respected after the announcement, McGuinness’s family still faced questions about her health.

A lot of people presumed I was dying.

Asked how she is now, McGuinness said: “I’m good.

“If I kept going I wonder how this would have panned out.”

Thoughts on the race

When McGuinness stepped back, Heather Humphreys was chosen to be the Fine Gael candidate, and ended up winning just under 30% of the vote.

McGuinness watched the election play out from afar, staying “dispassionate”. However, pressed by O’Connor today, she pushed back on the narrative that Humphreys’ campaign wasn’t successful.

“She got 30% of the vote at a time when there were two candidates and when Fine Gael didn’t get the full support of Fianna Fáil. That was inevitable. Not everyone’s going to vote in that direction,” she said.

She also said that the “sectarian abuse” Humphreys and her family faced was “despicable”.

“It was a campaign for the country that went in all sorts of peculiar directions,” she said.

Watching the election play out “didn’t make me feel better, but it didn’t make me feel worse”, McGuinness said.