Personal Life
Given married Jane Cunningham in Hexham, England, in a Catholic ceremony in 2001. The couple received a Papal Blessing from His Holiness Pope John Paul II, himself an amateur goalkeeper in his youth. They have two children: a boy, Shayne, born in 2004, and a girl, Sienna, born in 2007. In 2006 Given was awarded the Freedom of County Donegal in a ceremony in his home town, Lifford. He follows the Donegal Gaelic football team and witnessed their first All-Ireland success in 1992.
Given has also helped organise several successful 'Fashion Kicks' fundraising events, in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support. His mother died of cancer when he was five, so he has continually tried to raise money as it is an issue close to him.
On 27 November 2011, Given was brought to tears during a minute of silence for former team-mate and personal friend Gary Speed after he took his own life the day before Aston Villa met Swansea City at the Liberty Stadium.
Read more about this topic: Shay Given
Famous quotes containing the words personal and/or life:
“I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming that comes when you finish the life of the emotions and of personal relations; and suddenly you find—at the age of fifty, say—that a whole new life has opened before you, filled with things you can think about, study, or read about.... It is as if a fresh sap of ideas and thoughts was rising in you.”
—Agatha Christie (1891–1976)
“I have heard a good many pretend that they are going to die; or that they have died, for aught that I know. Nonsense! I’ll defy them to do it. They have n’t got life enough in them.... Only half a dozen or so have died since the world began.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)