Barry McGuigan shares sweet tribute to daughter Danika on ‘heavenly’ birthday

The actress tragically died in July 2019 at the age of 33, just over a month after being diagnosed with cancer.

Rising star Danika, who was also known as Nika, was best known for her roles in Can’t Cope, Won’t Cope and drama thriller film Wildfire, for which she won a posthumous IFTA Award.

Boxer Barry took to Twitter on Wednesday to remember his beloved daughter, sharing a stunning photo of Danika alongside a heartfelt message.

He wrote: “Happy Heavenly 37th Birthday Nika. We love and miss you every day but we hope one day that we will be together again”.

Barry has previously admitted that that he’ll “never recover” from Danika’s death.

He fought back tears on The Tommy Tiernan Show last year as he said that his life would never be the same again.

“I lost my daughter two years ago and it’s been shocking. I'll never recover from it. My life will go on but I’ll never be the same because family means everything to me.

“She was such a great kid. She had a tough life all her life. She had fever convulsions at nine months; she was dead on arrival at the hospital and they got her heart going again; she had leukaemia at 11, they said she would never get through it and she got through it.

“I’ll never recover from that. That’s the most shocking thing – to lose your child is just... I lost my brother; he committed suicide at 34. My dad died at 52. My sister died just last year. And they’re all bad, and Dad was very difficult to get over and Dermot was particularly bad, but losing your child is just the most shocking thing.”

The Monaghan native said that he still struggles with grief every day.

“I get very upset about it. I try my best not to. I think, ‘I don’t want to cry again.’ But, yeah, tough. Very tough.

“If this had happened to me during my career, I could never have continued with that. I don’t know if I could have recovered from that as a fighter.”