Hundreds attend Keane removal

The removal of journalist and socialite Terry Keane (68) who died on Saturday, has taken place in Dublin.

Several hundred mourners attended the removal. Father Noel Barber, a family friend, accepted the remains at St Joseph's Church, Glasthule, shortly after 5pm.

Mourners were led by Ms Keane's daughters Jane, Madeleine, Justine and her former husband Ronan Keane. Close friends of Ms Keane including Noelle Campbell-Sharpe, Ruth Kelly and Micheline McCormack were in attendance.

The Government was represented by Minister for Integration Conor Lenihan and Judges Adrian Hardiman and Frederick Morris were also present.

Ms Keane, who died at St Vincent's Hospital after a long illness, became well known as a gossip columnist with the Sunday Independent.

In her Keane Edge column, she often hinted at a relationship with with a leading political figure.

In 1999 she went public with her affair with former taoiseach Charles Haughey in an interview with Gay Byrne on RTÉ's Late Late Show.

However, in 2006 she said she viewed the appearance as a "mistake". Ms Keane said she had panicked at the prospect of a "tell-all" book being published and had decided to reveal details of the relationship first.

She worked as fashion editor with The Irish Timesfrom 1963 to 1970 and with the Sunday Pressfrom 1970 to 1989. She joined the Sunday Independentin 1989 after being wooed by deputy editor Anne Harris but left a decade later having sold her story to a rival newspaper.

Asked how history might remember her, Ms Keane said she had at least another 20 years to change the public perception of her, but she was essentially "someone who loves her family and who is loved by her family". 

Her funeral will take place tomorrow, after 11 o'clock Mass, to Mount Jerome Crematorium.