Kieran Hickey's Later Life and Death
Kieran Hickey lived to the age of 57, passing away in 1993 unexpectedly after an open-heart surgical procedure. He was fine right after the surgery, marking his improvement in a postacrd to his friend David Thomson, but died suddenly of an embolism. This was impactful to many people the same way his movies were, his peers claiming his death signalled the end of movies. Hickey left most of his life private, but is remembered by friends and colleagues as being loyal as well as ethical in his practices. That same loyalty was applied to his devotion to having privacy in personal life. In his later life, Hickey worked as an adviser to film students at the National College of Art and Design. Most of Hickey’s movies were based on Irish class struggles as well as political disturbances. But towards the end of his career, Hickey turned to fiction again, directing on BBC’s adaptation of John McGahern's “The Rockingham Shoot '', which ran until 2006, after his death.
Before Hickey passed, he was able to experience a celebration of his work in 1992. The Galway Film Fleadh celebrated all of Hickey's work in his career thus far. He was credited with being able to show a critical analysis of Ireland in his works, giving a gritty yet real image of Irish life. In the year leading to his death, Hickey was still working, joining forces with Phillip Davidson to write a new movie titled Party Town, but the movie never was published. In Hickey’s free time, he enjoyed hanging out with a large but private social circle, including hiking in the Wicklow mountains.
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