One of the stars Mrs Brown's Boys Dermot O'Neill, who has played grandad Harold Brown in the BBC sitcom since 2011, has revealed his sister died just weeks before his wife and the double tragedy has left him him "lonely" and "devastated". The 67-year-old's wife of 14-years Patricia, known affectionately as Chickie, died at the age of 60 in the early hours of the morning on Monday June 1. She died in St Francis Hospice in Blanchardstown in Dublin just months after receiving a cancer diagnosis. She was given mere months to live when doctors found several tumours in her stomach.

It has now transpired Dermot's 86-year-old sister, also named Patricia, had died in the same hospital only weeks earlier following a stroke. "It has been difficult. To lose two people so close to me is hard," he acknowledged. "I feel so lonely. I feel the pain all over my body. I'm simply vegetating on the couch. I have the telly on and I don't know what's on it because I'm hurting inside. Really hurting," he shared.

Recalling the moment he learned of his wife's death he said his daughter had called him shortly after 3am to share the news.

"I was devastated. It was surreal. I knew she was dying, but at the same time I was holding on to hope for a miracle,” he told the Sunday Independent.

Dermot's wife had been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in January this year after she went to hospital in Spain for a routine procedure to have a hernia removed.

She was left in shock as surgeons were unable to operate when they found several tumours in her stomach.

At the time she confessed she was "choking" when they shared her tragic prognosis. "Dermot has been amazing. He's old school - a real man's man. Being 14 years younger than him, he never believed he would see me being sick.

"When the doctor told me it was stage four cancer, he said I had months to live, rather than years. I was choking when I got the news. They can't reverse the cancer, only prolong my life," she said.

In an interview with The Irish Sun, she revealed she had been offered a spot at a Spanish hospital but decided to "come back to Ireland" as she worried she would "never see [her] kids again" if she didn't.

She had been undergoing chemotherapy at Dublin's Beaumont Hospital for several months prior to her death.