![\"Broadcaster](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ndSpeak_still_001_1.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe prolific documentary-maker, writer and environmentalist, who died on Thursday at the age of 55, was best known for his controversial television series No B\u00e9arla.<\/p>\n
In 2007 after a census had shown a quarter of the population considered themselves fluent Irish speakers, he made the programme for TG4, in which he travelled around Ireland doing everything through the Irish language.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew that was a lie [that 25pc were fluent], I knew people were lying to themselves,\u201d he told Professor Colm Graham of Maynooth University at a talk in the My Identity series, hosted by the Royal Irish Academy last February. The programme attracted a backlash from some Irish speakers who felt he did not comprehend the efforts they were making.<\/p>\n
His embrace of his heritage \u201calways had impish political undertones\u201d said one observer. \u201cIt was a very political programme,\u201d he conceded.<\/p>\n
The musician and radio presenter Fiachna \u00d3 Braon\u00e1in described Magan as, \u201cthe most non-toxic man I ever came across\u201d. On Oliver Callan\u2019s show on RT\u00c9 1 on Friday, \u00d3 Braon\u00e1in said the writer and broadcaster was \u201cborn to explore\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe didn\u2019t just travel to sightsee; he travelled to dive deeply into the way the custodians of those lands lived. That\u2019s what also informed his immeasurable gr\u00e1 for Gaelige as well. What he has done for us on that can\u2019t be measured. An amazing, amazing man.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although he grew up in leafy \u00adEglinton Road, Donnybrook, \u00adDublin 4, Magan\u2019s maternal family were steeped in the Irish language and \u00adrepublicanism. On his mother\u2019s side his great grand-uncle was The O\u2019Rahilly, the only 1916 leader to die in combat, after he was shot in the doorway of a shop in Moore Street attempting to escape from the GPO.<\/p>\n
The family spent summers in west Kerry, where they had a house in Ventry. He described his Irish-speaking grandmother, Sighle Humphreys, as \u201ca firebrand and violent terrier of a woman\u201d. But it was a legacy of \u00a310,000 from her that enabled him to build his eco-friendly house with a grass roof on plot of land in 1987 in Cummerstown, Co Westmeath. He lived there and grew his own vegetables between writing books and making documentaries.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Broadcaster Manch\u00e1n Magan. Photo: \u00a9INPHO\/James Crombie<\/p>\n
His father, who died when \u00adManch\u00e1n was 18, was a radiologist and a member of a well-known farming family from Kilashee, Co \u00adLongford. \u201cI\u2019m much more in tune with my father\u2019s family than with the pioneering, proselytical family on my mother\u2019s side,\u201d he told Prof Graham in the My Identity series.<\/p>\n
Manch\u00e1n Magan was born in Donnybrook, Dublin, in 1970 to Michael and Cr\u00f3ine Magan. He was educated at Gonzaga College, the nearby Jesuit private school.<\/p>\n
He studied Irish and history at University College Dublin, but, after a stint working in \u00adGermany, he became a traveller and writer, describing himself as a \u201cfootloose dreamer\u201d.<\/p>\n
In 1996, he was living in a \u00adcowshed among the hill tribes of Uttar Pradesh, in the Himalayas when his brother, the filmmaker Ru\u00e1n Magan, \u201cshook him awake\u201d and together they filmed what became Manch\u00e1n san India for TG4. In the following decade, they travelled widely in South America, the Middle East and China, immersing themselves in the people and cultures they encountered.<\/p>\n
He had a ferocious work rate and as well as his programmes on the Irish language, he was a consummate travel writer, most recently presenting Manch\u00e1n\u2019s Europe by Train. \u201cI\u2019m trying to make an impact. I\u2019m trying to make people fall back in love with the language and the landscape,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In 2016, he contested the general election for the Green Party, securing 1,104 first preference votes in Longford-Westmeath. \u201cWe need the ideas the Green Party espouse to be in every party,\u201d he said afterwards. But politics was a sideshow to his prolific literary output, with books including Ireland in Iceland, Thirty-Two Words for Field (2020) and Listen to the Land Speak (2022).<\/p>\n
![\"Presenter](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/13dbfcd6-b7e4-4927-b31c-59a312af5ea6.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Presenter Manch\u00e1n Magan. Photo: RT\u00c9<\/p>\n
He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2023. \u201cI was in San \u00adSebastian and I did a Zoom with my oncologist,\u201d he told the Irish Times in 2024. \u201cI knew there was a problem with my prostate and I had got an MRI, so when we were filming, there was a sense that this isn\u2019t going to give good news.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an interview with Brendan O\u2019Connor on RT\u00c9 Radio 1 last month, Manch\u00e1n left his bed in St James\u2019s Hospital in Dublin to come to the studio and confirmed that the diagnosis was terminal, as the cancer had spread to multiple organs. \u201cMostly, I\u2019m focused on thinking, \u2018Jesus, there\u2019s books, there\u2019s films, there\u2019s things I want to do\u2019,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said he wasn\u2019t \u201cscared\u201d of death, but \u201cthere\u2019s the sadness thinking about my partner being alone\u201d. It was a \u201chuge blessing\u201d that he didn\u2019t have children, he added. <\/p>\n
At the time of the interview, he had been in hospital for several weeks but was also planning to go back performing. His show Language, Memory, and the Magic of Bread, in which he baked sourdough and talked about his passion for language, was scheduled for a tour next month.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last five years, for me, it\u2019s \u00adalmost been like a cancer of creativity\u201d he told O\u2019Connor. \u201cI\u2019m just dropping these books and TV series every few months about the Irish language, different aspects of Irish culture.\u201d<\/p>\n
His last book, Ninety-Nine Words for Rain (and One for Sun), illustrated by the artist Megan Luddy, has just been published.<\/p>\n
Magan is survived by his wife Aisling, his mother Cr\u00f3ine, his brothers R\u00edoch and Ru\u00e1n and his sister \u00adL\u00edadain. He is predeceased by his father and his sister Dair\u00edosa. His ashes will be scattered on the Hill of \u00adUisneach in Westmeath on November 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The prolific documentary-maker, writer and environmentalist, who died on Thursday at the age of 55, was best known…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60,43288],"class_list":{"0":"post-62891","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-liam-collins"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62891","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=62891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}