Tributes to Former Examiner News Editor Donal Musgrave

Tributes were paid to the former news editor and lead writer of the Irish Examiner, Donal Musgrave, deceased at 78.

Mr. Musgrave, who lived in Inniscarra, Co Cork, and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease about five years ago, died on St. Stephen’s Day.

Former Irish Examiner The editor, Tim Vaughan, addressed tributes to Mr. Musgrave, whose career in print journalism spanned some 54 years.

“Donal was a true professional, the consummate journalist, with a brilliant nose for a great story and the competitive advantage to make sure he understood it first,” he said.

He was so wise and talented, and cunning as a tactic.

“But he was also a lot of fun and great company with a flair that was never far from his eyes, and he always went out of his way to be generous and encouraging to younger journalists in whatever way he could.”

Musgrave’s career began on London’s Fleet Street in the early 1960s, where he wrote for the Catholic Herald and The Irish Press.

He married Shirley Tait in London in November 1967, before the couple moved to Dublin, and later to Cork, in part in search of what his niece, Catherine Foley, described as her dream of buying a home from countryside by the water within a quarter of an hour from a city.

In 1969, the couple moved to Coolyduff Cottage on the banks of the Lee, where Mr. Musgrave worked as a Munster correspondent for The Irish Times, The Sunday Tribune, and then for him Cork examiner, which covers news, politics, energy and the environment.

He covered the story of Claudia’s arms trade in 1973, the Whiddy Island tragedy in 1979, and the Air India disaster in 1985, and became a news editor and later the Examiner’s lead writer.

After his retirement from the Irish Examiner in July 2007, Mr. Musgrave continued to write obituaries for The Irish Times and leaders for the Examiner, and pursued his love of angling.

However, in May 2017, he wrote about how the onset of Parkinson’s disease had first forced him to stop tying salmon flies, and then to stop fishing altogether.

Musgrave is survived by his wife, Shirley, their children, Katie and Darragh, his son-in-law Paul Galligan, his daughter-in-law Emer Maher, and his five grandchildren: Oisín, Ronan, Fionn, Aaron, and Cian.