In her own words, a memoir Keelin wrote for her children is due out in autumn
A MEMOIR by the late Keelin
Shanley is to be published this autumn.
The RTÉ presenter, who died from cancer in February aged just 51, had been working on the book in the months before her death.
The book will reflect on her life growing up in Monkstown, south Co. Dublin, her marriage to Conor Ferguson, and the birth of their two children, as well as documenting her stellar career as an award-wining journalist and presenter.
Keelin, who studied science in Trinity College, joined RTÉ in her 20s as a film reviewer in the early 1990s before working her way up to becoming one of the station’s most popular and respected presenters.
She had presented the Six One News up to May of last year. She was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011 and it returned at the end of 2016.
Her primary aim in writing the memoir, to be published by Gill Books, was to leave a record of her life for her children, Lucy, 13, and Ben, 10.
She worked on the book right up until the final days of her life.
Speaking at her funeral at St Paul’s Church in Glenageary, her husband said she felt she had a full life and that they had felt so lucky to have Lucy and Ben.
‘She was so happy with them and proud of them,’ he said, adding that Keelin would have been overwhelmed with all the love and respect she has been shown since her passing. He said there was more laughter than tears when she was planning her humanist memorial service.
‘She was happy. It was bittersweet,’ he said. ‘We felt lucky.’
In a moving and funny eulogy, he spoke about his wife’s ‘humble gumption’ where she did not think she was different or special to others but was driven by a ‘spirit to just get on with it’. A trained biochemist, Keelin believed that science dictates there’s a pattern to life but that some things, like her cancer, are ‘just f***ing random’.
She adored their ‘ramshackle house’ in Dún Laoghaire and Conor said: ‘The last couple of months, she was in bed and would look out the window at this tree outside and watch the seasons changing. She was wondering, which season would be her last. She was gratified to have made it to spring.’