Born: Born, January 1st, 1932
Died: February 15th, 2026
Despite a traumatic family background, the late Dr Niall Tierney (94) led what was described as “the epitome of a happy life”, no doubt helped by deep faith and a long, happy marriage. Son of the troubled generation which laid this State’s foundations, his background was blue blood, in both social terms and political hue.
It was somewhat unfortunate then that he was born on New Year’s Day 1932, the year his people’s nemesis from the Civil War era, Éamon de Valera, first came to power, where he would remain, uninterrupted, for the following 16 years.
RM Block
However, this did not trouble the relative tranquillity of Dr Tierney’s life. If karma can be identified as intergenerational, then he was favoured, in that the balance of events seemed tilted in his and his six siblings’ favour.
His mother’s family suffered grievously in the violence which brought this State into being. Eibhlin MacNeill was daughter of Eoin MacNeill, chief of staff of the Irish Volunteers and minister for education in the Cumann na nGaedheal government, which fought anti-Treaty forces in the 1922/23 Civil War that split her family, as it did Ireland, with tragic consequences.
She was the third of the eight MacNeill children, with brothers Niall and Brian older and Turlough younger. Niall and Turlough were officers in the Free State army during the Civil War, while Brian took the anti-Treaty side. Divisional adjutant of the IRA in Co Sligo, in September 1922 he was summarily executed by Free State soldiers, along with six others, on Benbulben. A medical student at UCD, he was just 22. His death, and the way in which it happened, had a profound effect on the MacNeill family, not least his sisters, who rarely spoke about it afterwards.
Eoin MacNeill later wrote of his son: “My Brian died as he lived, upright, gentle, kind and fearless. He shook hands with the man who found him dying and, when asked where the rest of his men were, he laughed and told them to find out.”
Doubt did not appear to be a family trait in the Tierney household, whatever the generation. Niall’s mother Eibhlin used to warn against ever saying ‘I think...’
Dr Tierney’s own life was comparatively bereft of tragedy, apart from the death of his sister Una from cancer when she was in her 30s.
His father Michael Tierney was a former Cumann na nGaedheal TD who lost his seat in the 1932 general election which brought de Valera to power. It was later said he came up with the name Fine Gael for the new party which emerged in 1933 with the unification of Cumann na nGaedheal, the Centre Party, and the National Guard (Blueshirts).
A forceful personality, Michael Tierney had been professor of Greek at UCD from 1923 and was president of the University from 1947 to 1964, when he oversaw its move from Earlsfort Terrace in Dublin’s city centre to the then suburb of Belfield.
One of his more renowned works, A Tribute to Newman: Essays on Aspects of his Life and Thought, reflected Michael Tierney’s deep awareness of John Henry Newman’s interest in university education and his attempts at founding a Catholic University in Dublin during the 1850s, laying the foundations for UCD.
Newman was canonised in 2019 and declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Leo XIV last year. His theology and views on education were also a life-long interest of Dr Niall Tierney, who joined the Newman Society of Ireland, set up in 1996, becoming its president in 2002.
An active member of Donnybrook parish in Dublin, Niall wrote about Newman in an October 2010 newsletter there, following the latter’s beatification by Pope Benedict XVI on a visit to the UK the previous month. Newman’s “views on conscience, dogma, and the role of an informed laity are increasingly recognised”, he wrote.
Doubt did not appear to be a family trait in the Tierney household, whatever the generation. Niall’s mother Eibhlin used to warn against ever saying “I think...”, favouring firm views, while he himself was “a man of strong, but well-informed opinion”.
He was “a hard man to have an argument with, hard to shake, even as he mellowed in later life, but always remained courteous”, was one recollection. He had “a great sense of humour”, yet “did not hesitate to intervene where he felt someone may have overstepped the mark”.
However, the depth of his disagreement in argument tended to be mild, as in protesting “Mary, darling!” whenever surprised at his wife holding different views. Mary Doyle was a daughter of High Court judge Thomas (Tommy) A Doyle.
Niall had seen Mary in Dublin’s Ranelagh one day, found out she worked at UCD’s main office, then still at Earlsfort Terrace. After many fruitless visits there in the hope of seeing her, he asked head porter Paddy Keogh whether he could please tell Mary he would like a word with her.
The ever-proper Keogh went into the office and announced: “Miss Doyle, Dr Tierney would like to see you.” She assumed this was a reference to the university president and thought she was about to be fired. Instead, she met his son – and her future husband. They were engaged within six weeks and married in 1968.
In one of those mischievous ironies that only life can get away with, their new home in Donnybrook had also been the first home to Éamon de Valera and his wife, Sineád. A (blue!) plaque there would mark the fact. The Tierneys had three children – Moira, Eoin and Patrick.
“It was a house full of books and good conversation, the most hospitable of places; Mary’s delightful lunches were famous,” one regular visitor recalled.
Niall grew up in Shankill, Co Dublin, later moving with his parents to University Lodge on the edge of Belfield. He went to boarding school at his father’s alma mater, Garbally Park, in Ballinasloe, Co Galway, and from there to Glenstal in Co Limerick and St Gerard’s in Bray, before studying medicine at UCD.
An avid reader with a home that was ‘floor to floor books’, he favoured European history, reading an average of a book a week in latter years
On qualification, he was deputy medical officer in Cavan and Clare before joining the British Merchant Navy as ship’s doctor, heading to such places as Nigeria and Hong Kong as the sun set on empire.
Back in Ireland, he worked at Peamount sanatorium in Co Dublin before joining the Department of Health, where he became chief medical officer in 1990. A dedicated public servant, such a post was not without its stresses, as he discovered when questioned aggressively, and he believed unfairly, in 1997 at the Hepatitis C Tribunal about the introduction of testing for the virus in October 1991.
In retirement, he was a founding member of the Older People’s Empowerment Network which, helped by the HSE, was set up to protect older people from financial abuse. He was also chairman of the Alzheimer Society of Ireland, a disease his mother suffered from in the latter 15 years of her life.
An avid reader with a home that was “floor to floor books”, he favoured European history, reading an average of a book a week in latter years. Recently, he completed most of Georges Simenon’s Maigret series.
Remembered as a generous, kind, slightly formal man of extraordinary patience who was particularly good with children, Dr Niall Tierney had “a very happy life” according to those who knew him.
His wife Mary died on April 17th last year. He died 10 months later.
