Author and broadcaster Manchán Magan dies aged 55

Kenneth Fox

Renowned author and broadcaster Manchán Magan has died at the age of 55.

Back in 2023, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and last month, he spoke to Brendan O’Connor on RTÉ Radio about his experience living with cancer.

On the show, he said that he had suffered a setback in his journey with prostate cancer.

Born in 1970 and raised in Donnybrook in Dublin, Magan was a staunch advocate of the Irish language and uncovering its history.

He presented a number of programmes throughout his career for RTÉ, including travel documentaries where he visited isolated tribes around the world.

Mr Magan also made a show called No Béarla, where he travelled around Ireland only speaking Irish. 

Speaking in an interview with the Irish Times last year, he said, “In terms of the psychology, I was never someone who was really rooted in this world.

“In my youth in Eglington Road in Dublin, it was just me and my herb garden. I never really made friends or was into sports. And again, when I was travelling, it was out on my own, looking for eco-communities or indigenous groups, but always people who were more focused on the spirit world and nature.

"So it’s a lovely irony that the illness I now get is so rooted in the body. And not just the body, but of course the groin.”

Speaking about his approach to covering his native language, he said: “It was the paucity of ideas with which the Irish language is normally communicated that depressed me,” he said. “Yet I would be in South America or China, Greenland or Africa, meeting people with their own language, seeing how their language, placenames, and myth were all entwined. I decided that I wanted to do the same in Ireland, to talk about the Irish language in different ways.”