‘We are shocked, but nobody died’
Marie Keane was at home in Whitechurch when the call came through. But she declined to comment when she answered the door to reporters just before noon.
“No, no, sorry, no comment,” was all the mother of the former Manchester United star would say, when she peeped from behind the slightly open white front door of her large detached country home.
She waved reporters away and then promptly closed the door. It was not clear whether her husband, Mossie, and their sons, Denis, Johnson and Pat, were inside.
However, it is understood Marie had phoned her brother, Michael Lynch, shortly after Roy phoned.
Michael arrived at Marie’s house just after 12.30pm with his wife Stephanie, who was carrying a large sports shop bag.
Michael, who won £2.8 million (€4m) in the Lotto in September 2000, declined to comment as they strolled up the winding drive to the house.
They knocked on the door and rang the bell but had to wait on the doorstep for up to five minutes for a response.
“The family is shocked at the news,” Michael eventually said as they waited.
He shouted to his sister through the window and then through the letter box, but still nobody came.
“Roy rang Marie to tell her the news this morning,” he said. “We are shocked, but nobody died. Life goes on.”
Requests for an interview with Marie were turned down.
“No, she won’t talk. Definitely no,” he said with a smile, before the door was eventually opened.
The blinds were pulled on the downstairs windows of Keane’s parent’s home.
The volume of a TV set in the front room of the house was turned up. It is believed the family was watching Sky News.
Roy’s sister, Hillary, arrived with two children shortly afterwards in a black BMW. They were whisked into the house before the front door was closed again.
Michael emerged a few minutes later and brought some bags from the car into the house. Calls to the front door again went unanswered.
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