Most ironic death

[HT_Black]

Killed and eaten by a staunch vegetarian/pacifist.

That's definitely "irony".

 

[EHKOS]

Read Saki's stuff. The endings always have some sort of twist.

 

[Blobpie]

An Olympic swimmer drowning in the bathtub

 

[Squilookle]

This just in: The pilot of a Dassault Mirage died today at an airshow when his aircraft collided in midair with a Russian Ilyushin.

Wasn't there some heath expert who, on live TV, announced proudly that he would live to 100, before suffering a heart attack in front of the cameras and dying right there?

 

[IBlackKiteI]

how about General John Sedgwick who died in the US Civil War with the immortal line "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..."

Oh yeah, laughed so much when I first heard that line, kinda hate myself for it.

(EDIT: I wasn't paying close enough attention to the OP. To add myself to the list of ironic deaths, I'm a big proponent of the importance of literacy and research. Ironic for me would be to get killed by a toppling shelf of library books.)

In 1871, lawyer Clement Vallandigham -- defending a man charged with murder -- accidentally shot and killed himself while trying to demonstrate how a man might accidentally shoot and kill himself. He won the case posthumously.

Jimi Heselden, the owner of the Segway company, died in a Segway accident.

Jerome Moody died by drowning in a pool at a party in New Orleans in 1985. Not just any party, mind you. It was party for the rec centre, celebrating their drowning-free season; there were four lifeguards on duty.

Moliere died of a tubercular coughing fit that started while he was performing as the central character in his play, "The Imaginary Invalid." The character was meant to be a hypochondriac.

Myra Davis -- one of the body doubles for the actress Janet Leigh from Hitchcock's Psycho -- was murdered in a shower in 1988 by a man obsessed with the film. The producers hadn't actually used her in the scene he was trying to re-enact; that was a different body double.

Garry Hoy died while trying to prove to his colleagues at TD Bank that the windows in their office building were unbreakable. He was proved right; when he threw himself against one of the windows, it didn't shatter. Instead it popped whole out of the frame and sent him plunging twenty-four storeys to his death.

The legendarily wealthy Marcus Licinius Crassus mounted a disastrous Roman expedition against the Parthian Empire in 53 BC. The Parthians cut his army to pieces and, when they finally caught him, executed him by pouring molten gold down his throat.

Felix Lloyd Powell penned what's known as the most optimistic song ever written, ?Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag and Smile, Smile, Smile.? Many of his fellow soldiers in WWI credited it with getting them through the horrors of war. It didn't work for Powell himself; he died by suicide.

Timothy Treadwell, a somewhat loony self-anointed defender of the Grizzly bear, liked to camp for months at a time in the wilderness and soak up the gratitude of his ursine flock. He and his girlfriend were killed and eaten by a Grizzly in 2003.

Laughed even harder at this, haha...I'm a sadistic bastard...

 

[WolfThomas]

Irony seems to be difficult for a lot of people.

Example
A diabetic hit by a truck = Tragic
A diabetic hit by a truck full of sugar = Amusing coincedence
A diabetic hit by a truck full of insulin = Irony

It's got to be the opposite to the expected outcome/normal association. A pornstar moving to dick lane is funny but not ironic, a pornstar moving to virgin drive is ironic.

Edit: By more modern standards of situational irony.

 

[AveryrGraven]

It would be to laugh myself to death.

Reason being; I suffer from depression.

 

[Berethond]

a pornstar moving to virgin drive is ironic.

That's not ironic, that's merely amusing.

Irony is when you use words in a way that is different to their literal intention.

 

[WolfThomas]

a pornstar moving to virgin drive is ironic.

That's not ironic, that's merely amusing.

Irony is when you use words in a way that is different to their literal intention.

Well Irony actually comes in three accepted forms verbal, dramatic and situational. I believe the first two are the oldest.

Verbal Irony is exactly what you said.
Dramatic Irony is when the audience knows something a character in a play doesn't (like Juliet is alive not dead) and doesn't really feel that Ironic
Situational Irony is the more modern form of irony is a just a play on opposite actions to the expected norm.