Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 3 Apr 1946

Vol. 31 No. 14

Death of Senator.

An Cathaoirleach

It is with very deep regret I announce to the House the death, on Saturday last, of our friend and colleague, Senator William Magennis.

Personally, I find it not easy to adjust my thoughts to the news of his passing. The last night he attended in the House—a fortnight ago—he engaged me in conversation in regard to certain proceedings of that day with all the acuteness of observation and shrewdness of comment which he brought to bear on the business of the Seanad. I did not then discern any signs of waning mental powers, and he parted from me with a humorous threat. It is only those who had the privilege of serving with the late Senator during his public life—earlier in the Dáil and in later years in the Seanad—who can appreciate to the full the great gifts he brought to the service of his country as a parliamentarian. His addresses to the Houses conceived in the classic mode, displaying lucidity of thought, preciseness of language, felicity of phrase, aptness of illustration, marshalling of argument made appeal not only to his hearers but to the wider public outside. He was a doughty opponent in debate but there was none more courteous or impersonal. It was in the intimacy of committee work, however, that Senator Magennis best displayed the very human side of his nature. In the committee room there were no political opponents for him, all were colleagues, and his persuasiveness, suavity and keen sense of humour often built bridges. Of his work outside the Oireachtas, for his university and for the cause of Catholic higher education, which was so dear to him and for which he was honoured by His Holiness the Pope, others have spoken. His work in both spheres will be remembered.

With the assent of my colleagues I shall convey to the widow of the deceased Senator the expression of our deep sympathy.

Guidhmid solas na bhFlathas is radharc no Trinóide dá anam.

Mr. Hayes

A Chathaoirligh, I should like to join with you in expressing my sympathy upon the death of Professor Magennis. It was as Professor Magennis I knew him over a period of nearly 40 years. When I first saw him, he was a member of an older generation in Ireland upon a social and political stage, the actors of which are passing all too quickly from us now. At that time—nearly 40 years ago—in the old Jesuit College in St. Stephen's Green, before the establishment of the present National University, William Magennis' reputation was very high, indeed. Only yesterday, one of his most distinguished pupils in metaphysics and philosophy told me that Professor Magennis was the most brilliant lecturer he had ever listened to in this country or outside it. At that time, he was in the very forefront in the fight for a national university and for suitable higher education for Catholics and Nationalists in Ireland. He was, as you have said, Sir, a magnificent orator. He had clarity, aptness of phrase, and a sustained vigour which he retained to the very end of his life. He did not come into public life, proper, until 1922, when he was elected an independent member for the National University of Ireland to support the Treaty. In face of the dangers and difficulties of that time, he displayed great courage and determination. He was a very good committee man, reasonable, sensible and resourceful in solving difficulties but, as a public man, he was abnormally sensitive and highly strung and, so, in many ways, unfitted for the cut and thrust of Parliamentary debate. It is for that reason that, in politics, he did not achieve the success for which his varied talents would seem to have fitted him. He was a man of many interests—philosophy, literature, education and law—and he also proved, since his entry into public life, that he had the capacity for doing a specific job of work. His achievement, for example, on the Greater Dublin Commission was very thorough and very fine, indeed. He was a man of vast reading and he had a great grasp of detail. When he took up any particular topic or any particular work, he did so most enthusiastically. It was granted to him to live to a ripe old age and, what is rare enough, with his intellectual vigour unimpaired to the end. We pray that God may grant him rest.

Liam Ó Buachalla

Is ro-dhona le gach duine againn an scéal atá fuagartha dhúinn fá bhás an tSeanadóra Mac Aonghusa. Is mian liom ar shon mo chomh-Sheanadóirí ar an taobh seo ár gcomhbhrón a chur in iúl ar an ócáid seo—céad-chruinniú an tSeanaid i ndiaidh báis ar gcoilléaga.

Is mór a bhí sé páirteach i saol na tíre. Bímís cinnte dhe, an t-am a bheas stair nua réime na tíre seo á scríobhadh, go luafar ainm agus sloinneadh Liam Mac Aonghusa go minic agus le honóir inti.

Eireannach agus scoláire do réir fírbhrí na dtéarmaí seo ba ea é. I saol an léinn, ní amháin go raibh an Seanadóir Mac Aonghusa féin sár-oilte agus sár-léannta, ach ina cheann sin, is féidir dúinn a rá gur beag duine a d'oibrigh chom maith, trí theagasc, trí shompla agus trí scríbhneoireacht le mór-bhuaidh an oideachais a chur ar fáil dá mhuintire. Is beag duine ab fhearr ná é a thuig tábhacht an oideachais ar a shon féin agus ar son saoirse agus leasa na hEireann. Ba mhaith a d'oibrigh sé agus is geal linn go raibh sé le rá aige toradh chomh fóinteach a fheiceál ar a chuid saothair. I halla na hollscoile nó amuigh i measc an phobail ba treoraí ionnraic é agus ba teagascóir éifeachtach é.

Ba mhór a cuid oibre freisin sa bpoilitíocht agus sa ngluaiseacht náisiúnta go genearálta agus ba mhór é toradh a shaothair sna cúiseanna sin. Sa Seanad, ba mhór againn go léir a chomhairle. Bhí intinn ghlé ghlan aige agus buaidh thar an gcoitionn aige a chomhairle agus a smaointí a nochtadh. Ba bhreagh an t-óráidí é agus ba chumasach. Is minic a bhí sé in achrann díospóireachta; thaithnigh an díospóireacht leis. Bhí sé dian san argóint agus is géar láidir an faobhar a bhí ar a chlaidheamh argóinte. Ina dhiaidh sin sílim go mbeidh gach ball den teach seo ar aon intinn liom nuair adeirim nach raibh mórán ariamh ann ba lú a raibh olc ná mailís ina chroí ná ina intinn d'aon duine nach raibh sé ar aon tuairim leis. Ba duine séimh, mánla é. Aireomid uainn é, is cailliúint mhór don scoláireacht agus dá thír é. Go dtuga Dia na Flaithis dó.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Because it so happened that it fell to the late Senator Professor Magennis and myself to take leading parts on opposite sides on a couple of debates during the past year, members of the Seanad may have been deceived as to the very cordial relationships which subsisted between us. After our differences had been expressed in the House, we used frequently to discuss them in private in a friendly manner and with a very great measure of agreement. Indeed, Professor Magennis more than once asserted that the differences which arose between us were differences between people who on most subjects thought fundamentally alike. During the last few months I think Professor Magennis had some slight intimation that his life might not be extended much longer. Although he still would run for a bus or still show his old pertinacity in debate, yet he seemed keen on recalling and having remembered for posterity certain incidents of Irish history of which he conceived himself to be one of the few repositories. He also was keen that certain attitudes for which he stood all his life should be preserved, and indeed he seemed to think that I, who had been his opponent, was the person who might be best able to preserve them, and he talked to me on many occasions on this subject. I had not known him before I came into the House, but he was one of the first to welcome me when I came here. He always helped me in every possible way, even when my attitude was opposed to that which he adopted, because he realised the importance of having matters thrashed out upon an abstract intellectual level. Even though he might not agree with his opponents, he was one of the first to realise the essentiality of having the opposite arguments put forward from a similar groundwork of approach. Personally, I shall miss Professor Magennis. I shall miss him in the House; I shall miss him in the ante-room; I shall miss the occasions when I had the pleasure of driving him back or walking with him a good portion of his way home after the Seanad. Although my knowledge of him has been so short, my expression of regret at his death is not less profound than that of anybody who has spoken or who will speak.

Sir John Keane

As one who had differences, sometimes rather acute differences, with the late Senator Magennis across the floor of the House, I should like to pay a sincere tribute to his memory. He was direct and uncompromising in debate, but when one met him outside the House he was invariably friendly, courteous and showed no sense of personal rancour. In that way, he upheld all the best traditions of Parliamentary life. His death is a great loss to public life and scholarship in this country. I should like to add these few words in tribute to his memory.

Mrs. Concannon

It is with a profound sense of personal loss that I join with those who paid tribute to the late Senator Magennis and who reminded us of the vacuum that his passing from this House will leave. I suppose there is nobody in this House who knew him so long as I did. That is one of the consolations of the passing of the years. I had known him for about 45 years. When as a girl I had to study logic as one of the disciplinæ for the first and second arts examination in the old Royal University of Ireland, I found I had to sharpen my wits so as to be ready for the cross-examination he would give at the “oral” examination table. I had also the advantage of attending his lectures on literature, and may truly say that from no one had I ever garnered such light and leading. It was as if he had given me the key that admitted into a kingdom of splendour and delight. His conception of literature was high and noble—and ennobling. He thought literature was an instrument to help us to right living and that is why it must have been a torture to him to serve as he did on the Censorship Board.

It must have been acute agony to him, and we ought to think of the sacrifices he made from his sense of duty. He was a great figure, a brilliant figure in the lecture hall or on the platform. I was one of those associated intimately with him in the meetings of the Catholic Graduates' Association, which brought into being the present National University of which I have the honour to be the senior representative in this House, and it was there I learned to know Professor Magennis's real work. In the ante-room or at the tea table in Leinster House I got to know Professor Magennis as a man, and it was as a man that I felt the deepest affection for him. One of the things I admired most about him was his deep fidelity to duty. It must have been hard on a man of his character and attainments to sit through long hours of dreary debate on matters which did not hold interest for him, but so deep was his sense of duty that he was one of the most regular attendants in this House. Everything he did he put his heart into and that is one of the things that count most in the end. It is not the brilliancy of his mind or his intellectual attainments but his character that really made him great, and in his character Senator Magennis was really great. With his great reading and knowledge he brought also the simple faith of an old Irish country woman, and I cannot give him higher praise than that. It is through his faith and upright living that he will get a welcome from St. Peter on the other side.

An Cathaoirleach

I shall convey to the widow and the relatives of the late Senator an expression of the condolence of the House.