{"id":541985,"date":"2026-07-10T01:52:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T01:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/541985\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T01:52:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T01:52:13","slug":"minister-for-culture-patrick-odonovan-hospitalised-during-trip-to-brussels-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/541985\/","title":{"rendered":"Minister for Culture Patrick O\u2019Donovan hospitalised during trip to Brussels \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Minister for Culture Patrick O\u2019Donovan<\/a> was hospitalised after becoming unwell during an official trip to Brussels this week as part of the State\u2019s EU presidency. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Donovan has previously spoken about <\/a>his experience living with epilepsy, which he was diagnosed with more than 10 years ago. <\/p>\n

A spokeswoman said: \u201cI can confirm that the Minister became unwell in Brussels on Tuesday night and was taken to hospital. He remains under close medical observation … There will be no further comment at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Donovan <\/a>first revealed last year that he had been diagnosed with epilepsy. The Limerick politician has a photosensitivity that manifests as the condition. He was diagnosed in 2016 and has been managing the condition since. The Fine Gael politician has previously talked about how he experienced \u201cviolent episodes\u201d in the run-up to the 2016 general election. <\/p>\n

He has also described how he sometimes struggled while speaking in media interviews or in the D\u00e1il as an episode could affect his speech. <\/p>\n

Earlier this year<\/a>, he told Newstalk that his \u201cworst nightmare\u201d was that someone would question if he was drunk if he suffered an episode during an interview or public appearance. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason that I didn\u2019t speak openly before 2025 about my epilepsy was I was terrified that people wouldn\u2019t vote for me, and that my prospects of being promoted would hit the bin,\u201d he said in the interview. He said that his condition does not \u201cimpede\u201d him once it is managed. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Donovan said that he had been \u201cashamed\u201d of his epilepsy because he was \u201cignorant of what it is to have a neurological condition\u201d. <\/p>\n

He was attending a cultural event in Brussels on Tuesday night to mark the State\u2019s presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2026. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Minister for Culture Patrick O\u2019Donovan was hospitalised after becoming unwell during an official trip to Brussels this week…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-541985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}