{"id":409933,"date":"2026-03-29T11:53:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T11:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/409933\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T11:53:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T11:53:14","slug":"when-i-close-my-eyes-i-can-still-hear-my-fathers-voice-my-mothers-voice-my-sisters-voice-sheila-oflanagan-on-grief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/409933\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018When I close my eyes, I can still hear my father\u2019s voice, my mother\u2019s voice, my sister\u2019s voice\u2019 \u2013 Sheila O\u2019Flanagan on grief"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">The bestselling author on finding inner strength after losing both parents and her youngest sister\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Bestselling author Sheila O'Flanagan. Photo: Mark Condren\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/6e9079e3-f396-41ce-ae01-02264ca43a4e.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Bestselling author Sheila O&#8217;Flanagan. Photo: Mark Condren<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Sheila\u202fO\u2019Flanagan\u2019s last\u202fconversation with her younger sister Joan was not without humour. It was in July 2023, a week or so before she died in a hospice in Belfast, where she\u2019d been for months with breast cancer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Their mother Patricia had died seven weeks beforehand, and\u202fJoan hadn\u2019t been able to attend the funeral in Dublin.\u202f<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The bestselling author on finding inner strength after losing both parents and her youngest sister Bestselling author Sheila&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[75],"tags":[8139,4747,18,117,19,17,23942],"class_list":["post-409933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-banking","tag-barry-egan","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-people-culture-magazine"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116312329992978697","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}