Mrs Brown’s Boys actor Dermot O’Neill has announced that his wife of 14 years has died, having only been given a few months to live when doctors found several tumours in her stomach
Mrs Brown’s Boys star Dermot O’Neill has been left “absolutely devastated” by the death of his wife.
The actor, who plays Grandad in the BBC sitcom, has revealed that his wife of 14 years, Patricia ‘Chickie’ Maguire died at the age of 60 on Monday (1 June). She passed away just months after receiving a cancer diagnosis.
Dermot, 67, said that Chickie had died in the early hours of the morning at St Francis Hospice Blanchardstown in Dublin. She had been given only months to live when doctors found several tumours in her stomach.
He said: “We are absolutely devastated. I am going to miss her so much.” Dermot’s words to The Irish Sun come only a few short months after his wife found out she was sick.
Chickie was diagnosed with cancer in January, after she went to hospital in Spain to have a hernia removed. Once there, doctors found the tumours and were sadly unable to operate. Since, Chickie had been having chemotherapy at Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital.
Chickie, a mum-of-seven, previously spoke about about her diagnosis. She told The Irish Sun that she was offered a spot at a Spanish hospital but she decided to “come back to Ireland” because she thought that if she stayed in Spain she would “never see my kids again”.
She added that she struggled to tell her children, especially her sons Salvador and Evan, who she told with Dermot. She said her husband “put his hand on my knee” and they they “all hugged and cried”.
Her only wish was to spend another Christmas with her family, as she had a three-year-old granddaughter, Ellie, and her “dream is to make it to Christmas Day and give her a kiss”.
Dermot and Chickie got married in 2012. The two met at a Brendan O’Carroll concert and they waited 20 years before getting married.
Dermot previously opened up about the surprisingly long engagement. He texted Chickie: “Do you want to be Mrs O’Neill?” She texted back saying yes and they were married a little while later.
Chickie, who previously helped Dermot recover from cancer in 2020, praised her husband for how he helped her. She called him “amazing”, especially since their age gap meant he never thought that he would watch his wife be sick. Dermot is 14 years older than his wife.
In Mrs Brown’s Boys, Dermot played Harold Brown, the father-in-law to the main character, Agnes Brown, played by Brendan O’Carroll. He was often teased by his daughter-in-law, who was unhappy to be looking after him after the death of her husband.
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