10 Photos of Michael Patrick, Wife Naomi Sheehan: Game of Thrones Actor's Heartbreaking Final Post Goes Viral After Death

Michael Patrick's final Instagram post about refusing further invasive treatment has gone viral after the Game of Thrones actor died in a Northern Ireland hospice on Tuesday night at the age of 35, his wife Naomi Sheehan confirmed on Wednesday.

Patrick was best known internationally for a small but memorable appearance in season six of Game of Thrones, while in Northern Ireland he had built a reputation on stage and screen. His death, Sheehan said, followed a years-long struggle with motor neurone disease (MND), an incurable condition that gradually robs people of their ability to move, speak and, eventually, breathe.

In an emotional statement on Instagram, Sheehan wrote that 'Mick,' as she called him, had died 'peacefully surrounded by family and friends' at Northern Ireland Hospice after being admitted 10 days earlier. She said he had first been diagnosed with MND on 1 February 2023 and paid tribute to staff at the hospice for their care in his final days.

'Words can't describe how broken-hearted we are,' she told followers. 'It's been said more than once that Mick was an inspiration to everyone who was privileged enough to come into contact with him, not just in the past few years during his illness but in every day of his life.'

Michael Patrick's Final Post On Motor Neurone Disease

The news came after Michael Patrick's last Instagram post, shared on 6 February, resurfaced across social media, with fans returning to it in light of his death. In it, the actor set out, in plain language and without self-pity, that he had decided against a tracheostomy — a surgical procedure to insert a breathing tube into the windpipe — after doctors warned it would likely keep him in hospital for months.

'Basically me and @nomsheehan were in hospital for over a week there – speaking to doctors and getting tests done etc. Talking about risks and implications of getting the trache put in. What day to day life would be like after the operation,' he wrote, before delivering his decision: 'In short I'm not going ahead with the tracheostomy.'

Patrick explained that medical staff had told him it could be 'around 6-12 months' before he would be able to return home afterwards because of 'lack of staffing resources.' He thanked 'senior social workers, politicians, [and] the chief executive of the hospital' for trying to secure the support that would have allowed him to receive care at home.

'Everyone has tried so hard, but there just isn't the staff,' he added.

The blunt admission, and his clear-eyed acceptance of what it meant, struck a chord with his followers at the time. It is now being shared again, sometimes without much context, which risks losing sight of the complicated, intensely personal medical and political calculation he and his wife were pushed into.

Naomi Sheehan's Tribute To Michael Patrick

Sheehan's own post, announcing his death, is full of the kind of detail that tends to get flattened once a person becomes a headline. She described Patrick as someone who 'lived a life as full as any human can live,' noting his 'joy, abundance of spirit, infectious laughter' and calling him 'a titan of a ginger haired man.'

She also said the family were 'so grateful for every person who supported us through the last few years,' a quiet nod to the network of friends, colleagues and strangers who had rallied around since his diagnosis.

Patrick had previously told followers that his doctor had given him an estimate of about a year left to live. That timeframe, which cannot be independently verified beyond his own account, framed his final months and sharpened the response from supporters as he documented parts of his illness online.

In the weeks after that prognosis, the comments under his posts became a rolling wall of encouragement from friends, fellow performers and fans, many of whom had discovered him through Game of Thrones and stayed because of his candour. The reaction to his final post has only intensified since news of his death broke, with strangers now addressing their messages to Naomi as much as to him.

What emerges from the fragments — the hospice statement, the medical explanation of MND, the anguished but practical Instagram posts is not a neat story about a fantasy-series actor, but something closer to a domestic tragedy conducted, partly by necessity, in public. Patrick and Sheehan chose to share just enough of their conversations with doctors to make clear that what did for him was not only a rare and brutal disease, but a care system in which even extraordinary goodwill could not conjure extra hands on a ward.

There is no official investigation into his care, and health authorities have not publicly commented on his specific case. For now, all that exists in the public record is a grieving partner's tribute and the actor's own final decision, recorded in his words, preserved on a feed that has turned into an informal memorial.