Behind Ronan Keating’s warm presence on The Voice Australia is a man who’s grieving his ‘hero’.
The 49-year-old singer only has one regret about his incredible music career, which started when he joined Boyzone in 1993 at 16 years old, and it’s that it took him away from his older brother Ciaran.
In 2023, Ciaran died in a car accident in County Mayo, Ireland, while travelling with his wife Annemarie to watch their son Ruairi play football.
In his new BBC show, Ronan Keating’s Wild Atlantic, the ‘When You Say Nothing At All’ singer has opened up about the loss of his brother while travelling around west Ireland.
“I never get to say it but… I was the baby,” he says to his nephew Ruairi in the show. “He was my older brother, my eldest brother, and he’s my hero.”
He goes on to say that joining Boyzone unfortunately meant that he missed out on doing stuff with Ciaran.
“I always looked up to him, you know. I joined the band, and I had to kind of grow up very quickly, and I missed stuff between us, and because of that, I lost a lot,” he explains. “I lost a lot and made a lot of sacrifices.”
He also said that filming the show had helped him understand why his older brother had moved away and created a life for himself on the west coast.
“He made the decision to make a life for his family. He left Dublin, and he went to the west,” Ronan explains. “And I think this journey that I’m on, you know, coming here and doing this, is me trying to understand more about Ciaran’s choice, so that I can somehow grieve and let go, because I found it very hard.”
Later in the episode, the men discussed how hard it’s been trying to go on living without Ciaran in their lives.
“Oh, man, it’s hard enough for us as siblings. I can’t imagine where you are,” Ronan says. “You know, I’ve kind of parked my emotions for the last two years. I haven’t been able to really deal with it. I haven’t been able to deal with the loss, you know.”
“It’s the same for me playing football too. I always look up and still think I can see him there,” Ruairi replies. “It’s always the hardest part as well after games, I used to check my phone.
“The first thing I’d see is my dad’s name, looking at my phone and not seeing that anymore. It’s really hard,” he continues. “I know he can see me, and I know he’s watching.”
“He was so proud of you, and he will still be so proud of you in everything that you do, all of you kids, you were his world, you know, pride and joy,” Ronan then replies to his nephew.
In an interview with Bella magazine, Ronan said he’d had a lot of therapy since Ciaran’s death.
“I’ve had a lot of therapy since losing him because I struggled — and I still struggle,” he said. “I don’t think grief ever fully goes away. I don’t think I’ve unboxed all of it yet, to be honest.”
He said he hadn’t planned to open up so much on the show but the trip just brought it out in him.
“But when we were travelling and talking, it just came out,” he explained. “There was no big plan to pour my heart out.
“We’d be standing on a cliff edge or walking a beach and something would hit me and I’d talk about him.”
In August 2025, Ronan called for stronger fatal car crash sentences in Ireland after the man who crashed into his brother was given 17-month suspended sentence.
“What happened to Ciarán, the injustice, the heartbreak, the devastating impact it has, and not just on Ciarán’s siblings, but on his children, his grandchildren, his wife — the ripples, it’s overwhelming,” he told RTÉ’s Drivetime at the time.
“We won’t let this lie,” he continued. “As a family you find it hard to breathe sometimes.”
Ronan said he believed the current system was “broken”.
“We don’t want to see some kid go to jail, whose life is going to be thrown away, we don’t want that, that’s not what we’re looking for,” he said.
“But what we’re looking for is to make sure somebody else doesn’t die because of carelessness. That someone else’s family is not ripped apart.
“Is our judicial system here in Ireland that broken? It’s ridiculous. Ciarán’s memory will not be brushed under the carpet because of that.”
