Matthew O'Donnell (1932-1996)

GRANGEWILLIAM CEMETERY

 

Grangewilliam Cemetery is located about two miles wast of Maynooth town centre, just off the main Dublin Road out of the town, between the areas of Old Railpark and Grangewilliam, at a point opposite the gates of Carton where a minor road to the left crosses the Royal Canal at Pike's Bridge. It was opened in the early part of the 18th. century in the area adjacent to the old monastic site of Donaghmore, which is still evident in the remains of a 12th. century church.

 

This cemetery is the last resting place of one of the few Presidents of Maynooth to die in office in the 20th. century. Matthew O'Donnell's family had lived in Maynooth during his youth, and when he died in 1996 after only two years in office, it was natural that he wished to be buried in the grave of his father, who had died some twenty years before. His mother was then still alive, but when she died almost ten years later she too was interred there. Here follows the inscription on the O'Donnell gravestone:

 

Location 129. Pray For The Soul Of Martin O’Donnell Who Died 10th December 1975 Aged 68 Years And His Son Monsignor Matthew O’Donnell President St. Patrick College Maynooth Who Died 27th September 1996 Aged 63 Years And His Beloved Wife Maura (Nee Weafer) Who Died 16th March 2005 Aged 96 Years R.I.P.

 

Matthew O'Donnell was born in Mungret, Co Limerick, in 1932, the only son in a family of four born to Martin O'Donnell and his wife Maura (nee Weafer), who had strong family connections with Maynooth. He studied at St Mary's College, Galway, and entered Maynooth in 1950, where he took the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy, being ordained for the Galway diocese in 1957. He carried out postgraduate research in Edinburgh (his special interest was the the 18th. century Scottish philosopher David Hume) and took a Doctorate in Philosophy at Louvain with a thesis entitled The Conception of Causation in the Philosophy of David Hume (published in 1960 by the university in its Philosophy Theses series).  He was appointed Professor of Ethics at Maynooth in 1960. He continued in that role (and later as Professor of Philosophy and Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy at NUI Maynooth) for a third of a century, also guest lecturing in other institutions, and particularly in Louvain where he spent the academic year 1972-3. He took particular pride in the achievements of his students, and was especially pleased when Philip Pettit became a Research Fellow at Cambridge and later Professor of Philosophy at Bradford University and later Professor of Social and Political Theory at Australian National University (he continues to lecture there as well as in Princeton University, where he is Laurence Rockefeller Professor of Politics and Human Values). Matthew O'Donnell was appointed vice president of Maynooth in 1980 and succeeded as president in June 1994, overseeing the planning and execution of the bicentenary celebrations of the college's founding. Previous to his death at the age of 64, he had been seriously ill following a heart attack earlier in the year. In 2006 a tribute in book form was published with the title Moral Concern for Society under the editorship of his former student and Maynooth colleague, Professor James McEvoy of the Department of Philosophy, and postgraduate scholarships in Philosophy and Theology were established in his name. An appreciation in the Irish Times characterised him as an efficient administrator, a brilliant teacher, and a man of great reserve and shyness who nevertheless delighted in discussing the most practical of involvements, including his own, in everything from carpentry to high finance.