{"id":165742,"date":"2025-11-29T09:11:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T09:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/165742\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T09:11:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T09:11:08","slug":"manchan-magans-widow-on-his-final-days-death-and-legacy-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/165742\/","title":{"rendered":"Manch\u00e1n Magan\u2019s widow on his final days, death and legacy \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aisling Rogerson is comfortable in silence. When I ask her about the last weeks of her late husband Manch\u00e1n Magan<\/a>\u2019s life, there are long pauses during which she gathers the right words to describe the experience. Tears slide down her cheeks. \u201cSacred, it was utterly sacred,\u201d she says. \u201cI would not use that word often in my life but the experience has given me permission to use it in a really meaningful way\u201d.<\/p>\n

Rogerson is sitting on a sofa in a room above The Fumbally, the cafe and community space she owns in Dublin 8. She is reflecting on the last few profound months of her life. It is two years since her husband, the beloved writer and broadcaster Manch\u00e1n Magan, was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and nearly two months since he died in her home nearby. <\/p>\n

She is aware of the privilege she and both their families had in being able to have him die at home, praising the hospice care team and night nurses. It involved, she is keen to stress, a lot of challenges, \u201cit wasn\u2019t the easier option\u201d, but it was \u201cbeautiful and healing\u201d. After another long pause, she describes those days. \u201cFalling asleep beside my soulmate every night, crying our way through the days together, knowing we\u2019re just getting one night closer to saying goodbye. It was the most beautiful thing in the world and what it did for our families \u2013 it brought us together in a way that was unimaginable, really.\u201d She adds that being at home \u201cgave everyone [in the families] the chance to be involved\u201d.<\/p>\n

Her husband\u2019s final moments transformed her understanding of life. \u201cOf course we are all made of spirit, of course. Look, it\u2019s just gone. And now what\u2019s this? It\u2019s a body, when you witness that, and thousands of people see it every day. You see that final breath, and then the body goes still and silent. It\u2019s just so clear in that moment what we are made of. This is just a vessel. And every expression of this vessel is the soul and the spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019s reflecting deeply on what to do with that understanding. She says it makes sense to look back to our ancestors and to the past for spiritual guidance and the wisdom that has been lost. \u201cWe have lost the connection to it \u2026 but it\u2019s so strong and it\u2019s so powerful that when you see it, you think, \u2018Oh, now I just understand life that bit better\u2019. We can easily forget it, or we can set an intention to not forget it and that\u2019s where I am right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

We talk about how Magan\u2019s death, funeral and month\u2019s mind resonated deeply with people, leaving space for a different kind of mourning. That mourning, both private and public, involved all kinds of rituals and unexpected elements, including acorns handed out at the church; indigenous elders from Canada; the Dingle Druid, and specially crafted funeral choreography. Michael Keegan-Dolan\u2019s dancing in the church<\/a> was one of many highlights – the President\u2019s uniformed aide-de-camp was even seen joining in at one point. All of this was intentional. Before he died, Magan told his wife that in his leave-taking, he \u201cwanted to be representative of a different way\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that Manch\u00e1n\u2019s greatest gift in his passing was just this permission to everyone to go there,\u201d Rogerson says. \u201cIt\u2019s like we\u2019ve been skirting around this for ages. Everyone is looking for something at the moment \u2026 religion has failed us. So what do we have? Let\u2019s go to the roots of it all. And it\u2019s nature and it\u2019s spirit, and he just embodied that. He made it accessible to the everyday person. Like I said in the eulogy, he was a straw-bale house-builder, but he wasn\u2019t a hippie \u2026 there\u2019s only a certain type of person who could have brought close to four thousand people to the Hill of Uisneach, on that incredible day<\/a> [his \u201cmonth\u2019s mind\u201d], with that weather.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Col\u00fan na marbh: Manch\u00e1n Magan – Si\u00falach sc\u00e9alach a rinne iontas den d\u00fachas agus den d\u00falraOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

This week, Magan\u2019s book 99 Words for Rain (and One For Sun) was awarded best Irish Published Book at the An Post Irish Book Awards. It is now shortlisted for Book of the Year, which will be decided by a public vote. Given the outpouring of emotion across the country after his death, it\u2019s a firm favourite to take the prize. Rogerson has a large box of handwritten cards and letters she has still to go through, messages from people touched by her loss. <\/p>\n

When we meet, she is thinking about the speech she will make when she accepts the award on his behalf at the televised event, and preparing herself for that inescapably public moment.<\/p>\n

\"ManchánManch\u00e1n Magan photographed in August 2024.
\nPhotograph: Tom Honan <\/p>\n

For the last 11 years, 41-year-old Rogerson enjoyed a private relationship with Magan, who was 55 when he died. They were a deeply loving if somewhat unconventional couple, him living on the 10 acres of land he had rewilded in Co Westmeath, her a Dublin-based European Studies graduate running a thriving food business in Dublin.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a relationship that very much fed us both in its spaciousness, but that spaciousness also created challenges \u2026 we were just lucky enough to be people who were able to look at ourselves and learn from any mistakes that we made.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Manch\u00e1n Magan obituary: Writer, broadcaster and explorer of deep-rooted connections between language and landscapeOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Their wedding was hastily organised a few weeks before Magan died. She borrowed her wedding outfit, white trousers and shirt, from a friend. \u201cThe idea that you\u2019d be getting married and that you\u2019d be dropping him back to the hospital in a wheelchair at 8pm on your wedding night and then walking out of that hospital alone \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

But she smiles remembering the way the hospital room had been decked out by staff, with a \u2018just married\u2019 banner on the door and \u2018his n hers\u2019 garlands hanging from the hand sanitiser dispenser. A \u2018celebration trolley\u2019 featured two packets of Tayto crisps, non alcoholic prosecco, a Gateaux log and assorted minerals. \u201cWe had the best craic the two of us in that hour. Miraculously, Manchan was able to take off his brace and we danced to Messy by Lola Young.\u201d She puts the song on her laptop and sways to the music, lost for a moment in the sweet memory.<\/p>\n

I thought I was a fixer. But I have been shown in numerous ways in the last few years, not just with Manch\u00e1n, that I am not in control<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Aisling Rogerson<\/p>\n

Since his death, she has spoken powerfully both at his funeral in the church at his former secondary school, Gonzaga<\/a>, and at the month\u2019s mind at Uisneach. She is a natural communicator, but not someone used to a public role. \u201cMy life has been profoundly changed and I\u2019m being catapulted into versions of myself that I\u2019ve been waiting for, that I knew were coming, but I\u2019m being fast-tracked,\u201d is how she describes this development. \u201cI was the invisible partner for 11 years, as a choice. That was the preferred situation.\u201d <\/p>\n

Last summer, when it became clear that Magan was dealing with rare and ultimately terminal neuroendocrine cancer, she remembers Googling \u201cManchan partner\u201d \u201cManchan wife\u201d to see what the internet had to say about her. She was pleased to discover the internet had no notion that Rogerson was the writer\u2019s significant other. \u201cIt was like AI was scrambling for the answer, and it wasn\u2019t there,\u201d she says smiling. \u201cIt threw up all these pictures of Manch\u00e1n with different women.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AislingAisling Rogerson: ‘I do believe the greatest healing we can give ourselves is just joy.’ Photograph: Bryan O\u2019Brien <\/p>\n

Rogerson is no longer an invisible partner, and as his widow, has become a main character in Magan\u2019s story. What has that been like? \u201cI have impostor syndrome in abundance, standing up on a stage collecting an award for him. There is a push and pull thing. Like, I tell myself, stand up there and be proud. And also I\u2019m asking myself: are you ready for that? Do you want that? Who do you want to be? Am I Manch\u00e1n Magan\u2019s wife? Or am I Aisling Rogerson? And who is Aisling now? All those lovely, big existential questions.\u201d <\/p>\n

Inevitably, she says the Aisling Rogerson of six months ago \u201cis a different person to the one sitting here today. And in the tumble-drier with that is all of the grief. My brain, when I wake up in the morning, is a minefield,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

Fortunately, she is getting help with this. \u201cI have two therapists now, not one but two,\u201d she smiles. \u201cOne who is more of a spiritual guide and the other, who I\u2019m starting with next week, who will be more nuts and bolts.\u201d She talks again about the moment of Magan\u2019s death and what it taught her. \u201cMy intention is super clear,\u201d she says, before correcting herself. \u201cIt\u2019s not actually super clear. I take that back. It\u2019s so murky and unclear.\u201d She is laughing again now. \u201cIt\u2019s unclear, but it was so clear in that moment, let\u2019s just put it that way. That\u2019s why I have a spiritual therapist and a nuts-and-bolts therapist. It\u2019s because I\u2019m trying to make sure that I hold on to that clarity.\u201d<\/p>\n

She is grateful for all the rituals they went through in the days before Manch\u00e1n\u2019s death. By phone from west Cork, death doula Liam McCarthy led them through a ceremony designed to show Manch\u00e1n that they were ready to let him go. <\/p>\n

With friends and an experienced guide, Rogerson laid out, cleaned and dressed Manch\u00e1n\u2019s body herself, something she had not known was possible until McCarthy raised it. She wants people to know that this is a possibility. \u201cIf you have somebody there who knows what they\u2019re doing, and they can guide you and help you, it\u2019s actually amazing and beautiful and sacred.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of these rituals were helpful and healing. \u201cIn terms of being OK with death and saying goodbye, we had done that \u2026 I feel like my grieving process was half done by the time we got to the funeral \u2026 that\u2019s why the funeral was so joyful, because we got to do all the bits before. <\/p>\n

\u201cI do believe the greatest healing we can give ourselves is just joy. I am someone who has gone through most of my life thinking I can fix things. I thought I was a fixer. But I have been shown in numerous ways in the last few years, not just with Manch\u00e1n, that I am not in control.\u201d <\/p>\n

She is \u201chonoured\u201d to be the new \u201ccustodian\u201d of the land in Westmeath, most of which is wild. The part Magan cultivated is, she says, \u201cfertile and abundant\u201d. There are \u201cfruit and walnut trees, a Spanish chestnut, a polytunnel, there is so much in the ground and so much that will go into the ground\u201d. <\/p>\n

\"AislingAisling Rogerson with her dog Cu\u00e1n in the Phoenix Park, Dublin. Photograph: Bryan O\u2019Brien <\/p>\n

In the past, she used to try to encourage Magan to tame the land. Not any more. \u201cMy ideas of aesthetics are changing \u2026 I look at a patch of wild brambles or nettles and just see the beauty.\u201d What will happen to that land? \u201cThat\u2019s what I need to make space for in my life now. I\u2019m in this transition moment of trying to untangle my threads \u2026 to free up some space to welcome in what Manch\u00e1n left me in terms of both the land and then also this, still murky, idea \u2026 we still have some work to do together in my lifetime and I don\u2019t know fully what that is yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

An expressive communicator, Rogerson is thoughtful and considered, putting hands to heart when she wants to convey deep feelings, laughing loudly and long when she\u2019s tickled by something. \u201cWe did a lot of growing together,\u201d she says of her relationship with Magan. \u201cThat\u2019s not going to stop. I\u2019m still in a relationship with him. It\u2019s not that I don\u2019t think I\u2019m ever going to find anyone ever again, but whoever that person is, is like, they\u2019re going to be entering into a relationship with me and Manch\u00e1n.\u201d She\u2019s laughing as she discloses this, but she is also deadly serious.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Manch\u00e1n Magan was a great man for a video message. You\u2019d never know what you might getOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

For now, she\u2019s thinking about what she\u2019ll say when she accepts Magan\u2019s award for his book. At his funeral she made a public commitment to learn Irish, so she has plans to spend time in the Gaeltacht in the new year. She wants to say something in her speech about how the book represents that intention. \u201cBut what I\u2019d really like to get up and say is how we all know he should have won awards for the other two books,\u201d she says, with a rueful smile, in a nod to 32 Words for Field and Listen to The Land Speak.<\/p>\n

Of Ninety-nine Words for Rain (And One For Sun)<\/a>, she says: \u201cIt deserves the win. Of course it does. It\u2019s a simple book about words for rain, but it\u2019s also much more than that because it\u2019s representing him, and he was representative of something far greater. He was plugging away at this message for the last decade and it\u2019s very much understood right now, and the award is recognition of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ninety-nine words for rain in Irish: could it actually be true?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

If some things remain murky, this much is clear: we\u2019ll be hearing more from Aisling Rogerson in the future. \u201cI\u2019m not intending to try to take on Manch\u00e1n\u2019s words or become a disciple of his message, but I do know that in some way I am going to keep the flame alive.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aisling Rogerson is comfortable in silence. When I ask her about the last weeks of her late husband…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[258,93,61,60,24560,3738,976],"class_list":{"0":"post-165742","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-cancer","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-manchan-magan","13":"tag-nature","14":"tag-weekendreview"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}