Rest easy: Anna Geary shares news that her father Michael has passed away

The broadcaster and former camogie star shared memories of her beloved father

Anna Geary and her father Michael on her wedding day in 2019.

Sharing a collection of photographs of her beloved father Michael, Anna Geary shared the devastating news of his passing on March 16 via social media on Wednesday. 

"Rest easy Dad. How has it been a week?," she posted with a gallery of photos including one of her and Michael at her wedding in 2019. 

Friends and colleagues shared condolences overnight, including Muireann O'Connell, who knows the heartbreak of the death of a parent all too well, having lost her father Brendan last year to cancer,  and Maia Dunphy, whose mother Helen passed away in February. 

Over the years, Anna, from Milford, Co Cork, has told the Irish Examiner of the huge influence that her father had on her life. In 2018, she said she believed her competitive spirit came from her dad, honed by playing with him and her brothers in the garden of their family home.

“I can remember growing up, anything from the age of four, when I could hold a hurley in my hand, we’d play a game, my brothers myself and my dad, called hit the drainpipe. Obviously, my mother wasn’t too impressed,” she said.

“My dad wouldn’t be like: ‘These are my kids so I’m going to let them win.’ He’d be more: ‘If you want to beat me you have to win and be more accurate.’ Whether it’s a game of cards or crazy golf, my dad would want to win, and I suppose adopted that from him. It’s perseverance, that you keep going.” 

In January of last year, she spoke to the Irish Examiner of his humour, describing meeting one of her heroes, Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh and how he announced his retirement a week afterwards. 

“I remember coming home to my dad and mam on the train, and being smug about the fact I had met one of my heroes. When the announcement came out that Mícheál had retired, my dad joked to me, ‘Imagine that man has given decades to broadcasting and after an hour with you, he decides to call it a day.’”