'The Ultimate Fighter': Meet contestant Aisling Daly

The UFC has always had a tremendous fanbase in Ireland, but only over the last couple of years did the talent in the gyms on the Emerald Isle catch up to the rest of the world -- or so it would seem.

Names like Conor McGregor and Cathal Pendred are now dotting main events and UFC fight cards around the globe, but before either of those two were the pride of Ireland, Aisling Daly (pronounced ASH-ling) was already one of the top women's fighters in the world.

Daly hails from Dublin, Ireland and actually trains at the same gym as McGregor and Pendred under the leadership of head coach John Cavanagh.  She had her first fight all the way back in 2007 and now has almost 20 fights on her record.

It's an exciting time for Irish MMA, but Daly admits it can be a little tough when most of the media and fans believe it all started with McGregor after he arrived in the UFC. 

"I do take pride in that.  It's something I'm really, really proud of," Daly responded when asked about being one of the first MMA fighters out of Ireland.  "I never really paid too much attention even when the guys were coming out, but more and more I've been seeing Conor (McGregor) and Cathal (Pendred) getting attention.  I feel like almost sometimes they overlook me. 

"It's like 'oh it must be so great having Conor get so big, it must have gotten you into MMA' and I'm like 'no I was training at the gym before Conor, Conor came and trained with me'.  So I've kind of made it a point of letting people know I was fighting before Conor, I was training before Conor, I'm around longer."

There are no sore feelings between teammates because with Daly now a member of the new season of The Ultimate Fighter, both of them are in the UFC where they belong.  Daly is certainly happy to see the expansion of the UFC in her home country because when she first fell in love with the sport there weren't many places in Ireland to train, much less people to train with everyday.

"I started doing MMA when hardly anybody in Ireland was doing MMA," Daly said.  "There were no people, not male or female, no people were doing it."

On the positive side, Daly wouldn't trade her Irish roots for anything even if it did mean having to work that much harder to find the right kind of training and promotions coming out of a country without a reputation for much MMA.  The Irish people are born fighters and that spirit was instilled in Daly at a very early age.

And she still carries it with her today.

"If I wasn't Irish, if I didn't have the upbringing that I was brought up with and the support that I had, I wouldn't be were I am," Daly said.  "We just have a fighting culture, the fighting Irish, and just the constant conflict with Britain; I definitely think that influences you growing up whether you want it to or not.  Makes you more fiery and feisty."

Learning how to fight at an early age put Daly on the right path to succeed in MMA and she certainly set the tone with first part of her career going 13-2 with several big wins including a victory over current UFC bantamweight Jessica Eye.  Daly fell on harder times starting in 2012, however, as she dropped three fights in a row before taking a year off from fighting all together.

At the time there was no reason given for her exit, but now Daly is brave enough to talk openly about a serious bout of depression that knocked her out of the sport and kept her on the sidelines for a year straight.   It wasn't the losing streak and it wasn't some personal tragedy that put Daly into a dark place.

In reality like so many millions who deal with depression, Daly just felt overwhelmingly sad and didn't know why, much less how to shake it.

"My life feels like it should be going good, but for some reason I'm sad.  I'm inexplicably sad even though my life is pretty good," Daly said.  "People think something bad has to happen to you to be depressed, but it doesn't. You're life can be pretty perfect and you still don't feel happy."

When Daly finally started to realize what was going on, she got the help she needed and a big part of that was just talking to friends and family about what she was dealing with at the time.  Many times people afflicted with depression don't even know what it is or much less how to treat it, but Daly was able to battle through and come out on the other side as a stronger and happier person.

"It was a tough time for me, but I got there in the end," Daly said.  "The show was definitely the hardest thing I've already done, and on top of all the established issues, it was really tough for me at points.  There were probably points where I thought that I couldn't do it and I couldn't keep up with what I was doing. Now I feel sort of invincible having come out the other side of that as well."

In a business where tough sells and there's no place for weakness, Daly openly talks about her battles with depression because she knows sharing her story could help someone else dealing with the same kinds of problems and they may be afraid or unaware of who to talk to about it. 

So Daly shares her story often and doesn't mind discussing it because talking things through and showing how she was able to persevere helped her make it to where she is today. 

"Talking about it to other people, it definitely helped me get through it.  It definitely helped me to just see that I wasn't on my own," Daly said.  "You'd be surprised when you talk to people about it, how many of them say 'oh I'm going through the same thing or I have gone through the same thing'.  Although things have gone forward on mental health there's still a little bit of stigma attached to it. 

"For me personally coming on the show, I just wanted to get it out there and help myself with it, but at the same time help other people because you shouldn't be afraid to talk about it.  Don't be afraid to tell people how you're feeling.  You'd be surprised how much better you'll feel by actually just telling somebody."