NUI Chancellor pays tribute to Professor Denis Donoghue

08.04.2021

Paying tribute to the late Denis Donoghue, the Chancellor, Dr Maurice Manning said that with his death 'English literary criticism has lost a giant and Ireland has lost one of its finest scholars. Following his studies at UCD and Cambridge, Denis Donoghue rapidly emerged as a scholar of global standing. On his appointment as Professor of Modern English at UCD, he inspired - and partly terrified - generations of students with his luminous insights into Yeats, Eliot, Henry James and Emily Dickinson among others. In his memoir Warrenpoint he said "Like every other boy, I intended to live forever and saw no reason why I should not. Apart from that, I had no particular ambition". However once he entered the world of English literature his ambition, honed undoubtedly by the experience of his Northern Ireland childhood, was soon fired and through his brilliance and industry he rose to the very top in his field. On the basis of his outstanding body of literary criticism, he may be considered also to have gone a long way towards achieving his boyhood ambition.

On behalf of the National University of Ireland, I extend my deepest sympathy to the Donoghue family. May he rest in peace'.

 

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