{"id":544282,"date":"2026-07-11T10:15:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T10:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/544282\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T10:15:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T10:15:12","slug":"joanna-cooper-makes-move-to-derry-amid-mums-dementia-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/544282\/","title":{"rendered":"Joanna Cooper makes move to Derry amid mum’s dementia battle"},"content":{"rendered":"

After years of living in Limerick for her husband Conor Murray<\/a>‘s career, Joanna Cooper no longer has anything tying her to the county.<\/p>\n

The couple, who share a 21-month-old son, Alfie, were on the hunt for their ‘forever home’, and given her mum’s battle with early-onset dementia, there was only one place that made sense for them: Derry.<\/p>\n

Joanna announced her mum, Teri’s, ‘heartbreaking’ diagnosis<\/a> in January 2023. Teri was just 62 years old when she was diagnosed in 2021, but started presenting signs of the disease when she was only 60.<\/p>\n

\"JoannaJoanna Cooper with her mum, Teri. Pic: Joanna Cooper\/Instagram<\/p>\n

Speaking to the Irish Independent<\/a>, Joanna revealed that her mum is living in a home, and the disease has progressed rapidly in recent times.<\/p>\n

And although her dad, her four brothers, and Conor are her rocks, Joanna feels an air of ‘guilt’ that she hasn’t been around more. Thus, the move to Derry.<\/p>\n

‘My mum is in a home and has been in a home for five years. But definitely there\u2019s always part of you, when you live away, and you have a parent that\u2019s not well, the guilt is always there,’ she explained.<\/p>\n

\"JoannaJoanna Cooper. Pic: Joanna Cooper\/Instagram<\/p>\n

Joanna recalled that the disease began to present when her mum was 60, shortly after she recovered from breast cancer.<\/p>\n

Teri became forgetful, and her personality ‘wasn’t quite right’. There’s also a history there; the model’s maternal grandmother was also diagnosed with early-onset dementia.<\/p>\n

In an update, Joanna revealed that her mum’s disease has progressed so much she ‘doesn’t know any of us anymore’, and heartbreakingly, she admitted that Teri has ‘no idea’ Alfie is her son.<\/p>\n

\"ConorConor Murray and Joanna Cooper with their son, Alfie.. Pic: Conor Murray\/Instagram<\/p>\n

‘You end up becoming numb to it, but at the beginning, it\u2019s really hard. It\u2019s an awful disease, especially when she was so young,’ Joanna explained, adding that the form of dementia she has is ‘quite aggressive’ and ‘took hold really quickly’.<\/p>\n

‘It\u2019s just awful, especially with Alfie. She\u2019s met him, but she has no idea that that\u2019s my son. She couldn\u2019t come to the wedding and stuff like that.’<\/p>\n

Teri also missed two of Joanna’s brothers’ weddings. Joanna lamented that Teri was an amazing grandmother, but since her diagnosis, she has four or five new ones that she’s met but doesn’t know.<\/p>\n

\"ConorConor Murray and Joanna Cooper with their son, Alfie. Pic: Conor Murray\/Instagram<\/p>\n

Joanna described how difficult it is to watch someone you love ‘disintegrate in front of your eyes’.<\/p>\n

The mum-of-one spoke of how if Teri knew she was existing in the world with this ‘cruel’ disease, she’d hate it.<\/p>\n

Life expectancy is typically ten years from diagnosis of early-onset dementia to the end, and Joanna wants ‘to be closer’ to her mum along the rocky road ahead.<\/p>\n

\"JoannaJoanna Cooper and Conor Murray. Pic: Joanna Cooper\/Instagram<\/p>\n

Joanna and Conor are currently renting in Dublin, but are set to make the big move to Derry in September.<\/p>\n

The former rugby player is more than happy to acquiesce to his wife’s desire to move home, saying it’s their ‘base’, and they get on with the Cooper clan ‘so well’.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After years of living in Limerick for her husband Conor Murray‘s career, Joanna Cooper no longer has anything…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-544282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544282","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=544282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}