{"id":357803,"date":"2026-03-21T12:52:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T12:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/357803\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T12:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T12:52:11","slug":"joan-delany-wife-of-olympian-ronnie-delany-dies-two-days-after-her-husbands-funeral-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/357803\/","title":{"rendered":"Joan Delany, wife of Olympian Ronnie Delany, dies two days after her husband\u2019s funeral \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Joan Delany, wife of Irish Olympic gold medal winner <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/ronnie-delany\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/ronnie-delany\/\">Ronnie Delany<\/a>, has died just a week after her husband, and two days after he was laid to rest. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">She died, surrounded by family, in the Blackrock Clinic on Wednesday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Her funeral takes place on Saturday at 11am in St Brigid\u2019s Church, Cabinteely, and the funeral Mass will be followed by a private cremation service.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">She is survived by her children Lisa, Ronnie, Jennie and Michelle (Mimi); grandchildren and great-granddaughter; sons-in-law and daughter-in-law; and sisters Pat and Sally.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">She was predeceased by her sister Ann and brother Brian.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ronnie and Joan Delany (n\u00e9e Riordan) were married for 64 years and while she was too ill to attend her husband\u2019s funeral she was represented by a single red rose.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/2026\/03\/16\/family-of-olympic-gold-medallist-ronnie-delany-recall-a-national-hero-who-was-a-great-family-man\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Family of Olympic gold medallist Ronnie Delany recall a national hero who was a great family manOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/sport\/athletics\/2026\/03\/14\/how-ronnie-delanys-date-with-olympic-destiny-inspired-a-generation-of-irish-athletes\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">How Ronnie Delany\u2019s date with Olympic destiny inspired a generation of Irish athletesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">She married Delany in August 1962 and in the eulogy on Monday Ronnie Delany jnr said that when he had talked to his father days before his death he had only one request: that his wife would know how much she meant to him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cHe asked me to speak today, and his one and only request was to tell mum how much he loved her, how she made his life the happiest life possible, that he adored her and loved her every day of his life, to thank her for loving him and spending her life with him, to thank her for his beautiful children, grandchildren and great granddaughter,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Delany jnr said he and his sisters \u201cwere lucky to have parents who adored each other\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joan Delany, wife of Irish Olympic gold medal winner Ronnie Delany, has died just a week after her&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,156241,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-357803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-ronnie-delany","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357803","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=357803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}