DERRY JOURNAL Editorial: ​Remembering Tom McGinley

​The occasion was the launch of his friend Dr. Keith Munro’s wonderful new biography, ‘Dr. Tom McGinley: Founder of the Foyle Hospice’, on the fourth anniversary of his death on Wednesday.

The book is a 235 testament to a man who did so much to revolutionise palliative care locally.

When Tom died in early 2021 we were in the grips of one of our worst coronavirus waves and thus in strict lockdown.

And though President Michael D. Higgins was among the first to pay tribute back then, COVID-19, as his son Ciarán told a packed audience in St. Columb’s Hall, ‘robbed us of giving him the send off he deserved and prevented all of you from coming and paying your respects in person’.

The book launch was an opportunity for people to finally come together and celebrate the life of a man who truly delivered change for the better.

The word ‘legend’ is sometimes bandied too freely. Tom would have refused to recognise it had it been applied to himself. But nowhere would it have been more appropriate.

Out of his own grief and anger over the suffering of young terminal cancer patient Michael Donaghy, in the 1960s, Dr. Tom summoned a movement. Thousands from Derry, Donegal, Tyrone, have died better deaths in the hospice than they otherwise would have thanks to his leadership and sheer force of will. As Ciarán said: “His legacy lives on and will never be forgotten.”

IN PICTURES: Pics from ‘Dr. Tom McGinley: Founder of the Foyle Hospice’ launch