Keith Duffy paid tribute to his late dad Sean by singing at his funeral
The 44-year-old star performed a rendition of the Frank Sinatra song 'My Way' and delivered the eulogy, in which he described his father - who fought cancer for almost two decades, and passed away last week aged 78 - as a "bigger man than [he] will ever meet."
17 January 2022
He said: "We're all going to go someday and it's never going to be nice but for 18 years my dad has fought cancer.
"And fight it he did and he went on to beat it, which is quite amazing, but unfortunately it came back again. He beat it four times. On the Wednesday before Christmas, Sean got the results from his most recent PET scan.
"His oncologist turned to him and said, 'Wow Sean, you're unbelievable. 18 years later and yet again you're in remission, you're some fighter'. He's a bigger man than any I'll ever meet."
The Boyzone singer - who has children Jay, 25, and Mia, 21, with his wife Lisa Smith - added that his dad "didn't give up" in his final days because he wanted to "stay around for his grandchildren".
According to the Irish Mirror newspaper, he added: "He didn't give up. Most people would probably lose that battle after 24 hours, but my dad didn't. He fought that fight and he fought it for five days and I watched something happen. I watched the man that I always considered a hero fight not for himself, but for us, to try and stay around for his grandchildren, he didn't want to go anywhere."
Keith was joined at the funeral by his Boyzone bandmates at the Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, Ireland, and among the songs played at the funeral was 'Bridge Over Troubled Water', which was a song that Sean and his wife Pat, Keith's mum, "held in their hearts together".
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