Nearly two decades into his marriage, Michael Flatley still spoke about his wife, Niamh O’Brien, with the warmth and excitement of someone at the beginning of a romance.
“I’m very blessed. I’m in love with my wife, and she’s in love with me. We have a wonderful son. I don’t remember us ever having a bad word,” he once said.
When asked earlier this year about the secret behind their lasting marriage, Flatley offered a simple answer: “Marry the right person.” He believed he had been exceptionally fortunate to do exactly that.
As the couple’s 20th wedding anniversary approached, the famously theatrical Lord of the Dance was preparing a romantic surprise worthy of the occasion.
On October 14, Flatley and Niamh were due to celebrate 20 years since they married before a packed congregation in a church in Co Cork. The dancer had planned to surprise his wife by asking her to renew their vows.
“I have something very special planned for the 20th to renew our vows,” he revealed, only to realise moments later that he may have spoiled his own surprise.
“I shouldn’t have said that — my wife is going to know all about this! But I won’t say what it is and I won’t tell her. I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” he added.
But the milestone anniversary they had anticipated will now never take place. Only days before it, Niamh — the woman Flatley had known for more than 30 years, loved for two decades and called his “missing piece” — died aged 52.
Announcing her death on Monday evening, the 68-year-old performer said: “My heart is broken. My gorgeous bride of 20 years has gone to the Lord in Heaven.”
“She was the most loving mother, wife and person, and our lives will never be the same without her,” he continued.
Flatley’s life was surrounded by grandeur, from his spectacular dance productions and lavish properties to his considerable fortune and larger-than-life public image. Yet his marriage was marked by something far more private, steady and uncomplicated.
“They were just mad about each other,” a close friend of the couple told the Irish Daily Mail this week.
The friend described their bond as “a great relationship,” adding that Niamh was “always there for him, always behind him.” Although she avoided publicity and the spotlight, she was content to let Flatley embrace his flamboyant personality.
Those close to the Irish dance star also noticed a change in him once his friendship with Niamh developed into something deeper.
“He quietened down,” the friend recalled. “He is a family man and only had eyes for one woman.”
Their relationship was not born from a brief, dramatic courtship. Before she became Michael Flatley’s wife, Niamh was his fellow dancer, trusted friend and confidante. Their paths remained closely connected for more than a decade before friendship eventually grew into love.
Born in Kilbride, Co Meath, to Monica and Thomas O’Brien, Niamh started Irish dancing when she was just three. She went on to become a highly accomplished competitor, placing fourth in the World Irish Dancing Championships at the age of 17.
Her talent later drew her into the remarkable story that began in Dublin in 1994, when Riverdance appeared during the Eurovision Song Contest and transformed Irish dance — as well as the careers of those involved.
Riverdance quickly became a worldwide sensation, while Michael Flatley, its charismatic, bare-chested and swaggering leading man, emerged as the production’s first international superstar.
“My heart is broken. My gorgeous bride of 20 years has gone to the Lord in Heaven,” the devastated 68-year-old said while announcing her death on Monday evening.
Niamh was part of that world from its earliest days and when Flatley left Riverdance amid a very public dispute the following year, she remembered the devastation among the dancers.
‘We were in rehearsal and everybody was distraught,’ she recalled in an interview.
‘We didn’t know what was going to happen. He had been the driving force for all of us to keep up. He’d kept us motivated so it was a really horrible time for everybody.’
Niamh subsequently joined Michael in his new venture, Lord Of The Dance, alongside her sisters Aoibheann and Derval, becoming one of its leading performers as Saoirse, before also appearing in Feet Of Flames and Celtic Tiger.
Over those years a close friendship developed between her and Michael, although romance was still a long way off.
Michael’s private life was considerably more turbulent. He had married Polish-born Beata Dziaba in 1986, with the couple divorcing in 1997, and later embarked on a high-profile relationship with the late Irish model Lisa Murphy.
He proposed to Lisa during a romantic trip to Monaco in 2002, but after an on-off relationship lasting several years they finally separated in 2006.
Through those years Niamh remained one of Michael’s friends and confidantes and, he would later admit, precisely because he thought so highly of her, she had seemed almost off-limits romantically.
‘My wife was the one that I had on a pedestal, the one on the show that I would never ask out,’ he recalled in an interview earlier this year. ‘Because she was such a lady, so classy, you know?’
There had, however, been signs that friendship might one day become something more. Michael recalled a party years earlier when he suddenly found himself looking at his longtime friend differently.
‘I noticed she was stunning – she took my breath away,’ he said of a moment in 2001. ‘We were at a party. I grabbed her arm and half-jokingly said, “Will you marry me?” She whispered into my ear, “If only you meant that”.’
By 2006, he did. Having split from Lisa and after more than a decade of friendship, Michael and Niamh’s relationship blossomed into romance and, once together, they wasted little time.
He spoke publicly about the woman who he said had stolen his heart, describing Niamh as his ‘missing piece’ adding: ‘I’ve got the houses, the money and the success, now I want someone to share it with.’
Within months they were engaged and, in a flourish entirely in keeping with the Lord Of The Dance, Michael reportedly presented his bride-to-be with a huge diamond engagement ring worth around €250,000.
Then, on October 14, 2006, came a wedding that could hardly have been more Flatley.
More than 1,000 well-wishers gathered outside St Patrick’s Church in Fermoy, Co Cork, where Michael – himself almost half an hour late – arrived dressed in black tails, a white bow tie and a single red rose.
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Yet Niamh managed to keep even the famously theatrical showman waiting, arriving in a Rolls-Royce Phantom in an ivory Badgley Mischka gown trimmed with vintage lace, reported at the time to have cost around €100,000.
As her father Tommy escorted her down the aisle, Michael struggled to contain his emotion and whispered to his bride: ‘You look absolutely stunning.’
‘I couldn’t take my eyes off Niamh,’ he said afterwards. ‘She looked absolutely stunning. I know I’m a very lucky man.’
Niamh, meanwhile, emerged from the church declaring: ‘This is the happiest day of my life. I feel like a real princess.’
From the church, guests travelled to Michael’s magnificent Castlehyde estate, where the celebrations were every bit as extravagant as expected.
There was caviar, lobster, oysters and salmon, Champagne flowed, and fine wines worth a reported €1,000 a bottle were brought up from Michael’s extensive cellar.
Around 100 chefs and staff kept the celebrations going, while chocolate dancing shoes were used as novelty centrepieces and, for those whose tastes were less rarefied, traditional fish and chips were also served.
The newlyweds took to the floor for their first dance to Frank Sinatra’s Fly Me To The Moon, before Michael later jumped behind the bar to pull pints for his guests and eventually joined the musicians playing flute as the celebrations continued into the early hours.
Within weeks of their big day, however, their marriage faced its first frightening test.
In November 2006, Michael became seriously ill with a mystery viral infection and was admitted to hospital in London, forcing him to cancel the European dates of Celtic Tiger. Niamh, by then four months pregnant, remained at his bedside as he fought to recover.
Five months later came the happiest of reasons to be back in hospital when, in April 2007, following a long labour and Caesarean section, Niamh gave birth to their only child, Michael St James.
Michael was beside her in theatre and emerged overwhelmed by the experience.
‘I don’t know if this is the greatest feeling ever but I can’t remember anything better, it’s incredible,’ he said. ‘And I love my wife more today than ever before.
‘Niamh is the real star,’ he declared at the time.
Michael St James with his parents Niamh and Michael Flatley at the Blackbird film premiere
Fatherhood appeared to complete a transformation that friends had already witnessed after Niamh came into his life.
Michael freely admitted that he had spent much of his younger years ‘partying, drinking and chasing women’, but by 2007 his ambitions were altogether more domestic.
‘Having a family has made me the happiest man in the world,’ he said. ‘I’ve always dreamt of being married with children, I was right to. Everything feels perfect— I’m so blessed. All I want is to be the best father and husband imaginable.’
While Michael continued to occupy a world of enormous wealth and celebrity, Niamh increasingly retreated from public life to concentrate on their son and family. It was a division that appeared to suit them both, and at the centre of their Irish life was Castlehyde, the magnificent Co Cork estate.
Michael bought the estate in 1999 for around €4million and subsequently spent tens of millions restoring it to its former glory.
The sprawling period house was every bit as lavish as one might expect of the Lord Of The Dance, whose shows have grossed more than $1billion worldwide and whose personal fortune has variously been estimated at between €230million and €420million.
But in October 2023, the family were forced to leave the property after potentially hazardous chemical residue was discovered there, prompting a long-running legal battle over restoration works carried out over a fire.
Michael himself has struggled with some serious health issues in years. Having previously been treated for facial skin cancer and, in late 2022, received another devastating diagnosis.
He, Niamh and their son had travelled to Dubai for some winter sun before Michael underwent tests at the Princess Grace Hospital in Monaco, where the primary family residence is.
Then, shortly before Christmas, his doctor telephoned and told him he had an agressive cancer that required surgery.
‘I was thinking to myself, “What have I done to deserve this?”’ he remembered. ‘I turned and there was Niamh.
She was listening to everything because she loves me. Then she hugged me and everything seemed a little better.’
Michael subsequently revealed that he was in remission, later reflecting that, after everything his extraordinary career had given him, his greatest reward was ‘my beautiful wife and son.’
In recent years, Michael, Niamh and their son spent much of their time in Monaco, but wherever the family found themselves, it was clear that the three remained exceptionally close.
One of their final public appearances together came in April when they travelled to the Vatican, where Niamh, elegantly dressed in black, smiled for photographs alongside her husband and son as Michael had his rosary beads blessed.
Behind the scenes, however, Niamh had been living with a long-standing lung condition which had deteriorated over the past year.
It has since emerged that she was due to fly to the United States to receive a lung transplant but died on Monday at Dublin’s Beacon Hospital before it could be carried out.
She leaves behind her devastated husband, their 19-year-old son Michael St James, her parents, sisters and a wide circle of relatives, friends and members of an Irish dancing community of which she had been part for most of her life.
Asked once what love felt like, Michael answered with a single word: ‘Heaven.’ And when asked to name the best kiss of his life, there was no hesitation either: ‘My wedding day at the altar.’
Heartbreakingly next Wednesday there will be no 20th anniversary celebration and no surprise renewal of their vows. Instead, Michael and Michael St James are facing life without the woman who had been at the centre of their family.
But for almost two decades, Michael Flatley appeared to have found precisely what he had spent years searching for: not another leading lady, but the woman he wanted beside him when the curtain came down.
