‘He lived a life that we want to celebrate’: Family remember Séamus McGee, the reluctant hero of Ireland’s reproductive rights movement

Séamus and May McGee with members of their family

Ellen Coyne

Soulmates and best friends May and Séamus McGee never got to say goodbye to each other. The humble couple, who changed Ireland’s social, legal and medical history, had been together for almost 60 years when Mr McGee, who was also known as Shay, passed away suddenly in his sleep late last month.

“Mum never got to say goodbye to dad. He passed away beside her,” Andrea McGee, their youngest daughter, said. “It was sudden.