Former Irish Examiner journalist Donal Musgrave dies Former Irish Examiner and Irish Times journalist Donal Musgrave, who has died at the age of 78. Sun, 27 Dec, 2020 - 16:05 Catherine Foley Donal Musgrave, a widely respected journalist and news editor, has died in Cork after a long illness. He was 78. The second son of two boys born to Máiréad (née Foley) and Harry Musgrave, of Newcastle West, Co Limerick, he was a brilliant and highly regarded journalist who worked mainly in print, starting out as a journalist in London’s Fleet Street in the early 1960s. His career began with a series of articles on the homeless, which he wrote for the Catholic Herald, spending a week living rough in the city, making calls from a phone box on the street to update the editor on his story.