Jon Kenny has passed away at the age of 66 following a battle with cancer.
The comedy legend died in Galway Clinic on Friday, 16 November and is best known as one half of D'Unbelievables with fellow comedian Pat Shortt.
More recently, he starred in the Oscar-nominated film The Banshees of Inisherin alongside Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson.
Read more: See inside D’Unbelievables star Jon Kenny’s idyllic home in a 20 acre forest in the Limerick countryside
Read more: Pat Shortt says he and wife Caroline aren’t ‘empty nesters’ as kids remain at home
Earlier this week, The Schoolyard Theatre in Charleville in Cork announced that they had cancelled an event which Jon was scheduled to perform at on Saturday.
The Limerick native was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma for the first time back in 2000.
The disease came back in 2020, which required him to have significant surgery on his lungs.
He appeared on Oliver Callan’s RTE Radio 1 show earlier this year and spoke about his health.
“I got cancer at the beginning of 2000 and I had no choice but to take a step back,” he said.
“Over the space of two years I was on different forms of treatment.”
He underwent extensive chemotherapy after being diagnosed in his early 40s.
The comedian explained: “I got a stem cell transplant thanks be to god, they sorted me out and I motored on for another while.”
However, he found out in 2020 that his cancer returned and he needed serious surgery on his left lung.
“My cancer came back about three or four years ago. I had an operation to remove some of my left lung and that was grand,” he said.
He added: “But then the f**ker came back again. I got it back on my left lung again [last year].”
Jon started chemotherapy again, which was successful. However, he ended up in heart failure.
He shared: “I’ve been lucky because my chemo is working, so I’ve been grand. But then in the middle of it all, just for the craic when I was just getting on with things and I had my second chemo, then I had heart failure - just to throw that in the mix. A nice little cocktail of things”
The Limerick native decided to “put the blinkers on and keep going” and focus on the positives.
“My heart function is back up again, so there’ll be no possibility of me keeling over at my next three outings,” he revealed.
He explained at the time that his condition was currently “under control”. He said: “I’m on what they call 'maintenance’ at the moment. They don’t want it coming back, it’s a good reason. But things seem to be under control from what we can tell.”
“I didn’t have it last week, I had a break from it, so it’s not in my system now and I can do my shows,” he continued.
“I get it every three weeks, but if I can start to stretch that to every four or five weeks, it’ll give me time to feel better and do stuff.”
Funeral details are yet to be announced.
English (US) ·