Irelands oldest twins pass away within days of each other

Ireland’s oldest twins passed away within a day and a half of each other, aged 95.

Kathleen and Shelia Keogan from Aughalion, Ballyjamesduff, were identical twins, who spent much of their lifetimes together.
The sisters entered the Sheelin Nursing Home in Mountnugent where the appreciative Keogan family report they were “exceptionally well looked after”.
Shelia passed away at 10pm on Friday night, October 2. Remarkably Kathleen, who was not in good health, and was unaware of her sister’s passing, herself died at noon of Sunday, October 4.
A nephew, Damien Keogan, said the family took “great comfort” in that they have passed from this life so close together.
“They are a great loss to the Keogan family,” he added.
Having left sleepy rural Cavan in 1938 for England where they trained and worked as nurses, they were soon to experience first hand the hazards of life during World War 2.
During such perilous times, they regularly wrote home to their family in Aughalion informing them that they had survived another week. On one occasion, they survived a direct hit on the hospital in Hammersmith. The bomb struck the centre of the building with the twins separated in the two wings, not knowing for a couple of days whether each had survived or not.
They nursed patients in makeshift wards in the London Underground, where due to unhygienic conditions, they both contracted TB. Kathleen spent over five years recovering in hospital and had over one and a third of her lung removed. Shelia served in the Red Cross Nursing Corps towards the end of the war.
In the post war period, they nursed in different places; Peamount, Lisdarn Hospital in Cavan, St Kevin’s and St James’s in Dublin, and also New York and Romsford-Essex, before returning home to Aughalion on retirement; Kathleen from New York in 1976 and Shelia from Saffron Walden in 1980.
After 95 years together, it appears that they didn’t want break the habit of a lifetime, and passed away with Kathleen passing away within two days of her sister Shelia.

They were buried together in Castlerahan cemetery on October 5, their extended family giving an appropriate send off to their final resting place.

Kathleen and Shelia Keogan are survived by two of the youngest in the family, Sean Keogan and Bernadette O’Reilly. They were predeceased by sisters Mary, Eileen (Cooney), Peg (McDermot) and brother James, Paddy, and Terry.