Michael Nugent
| Michael Nugent | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
1 June 1961 Dublin, Ireland |
| Nationality | Irish |
| Education |
St. Aidan's C.B.S. Dublin Institute of Technology |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Known for | Writing I, Keano; Challenging Irish blasphemy law |
| Title | Chairperson, Atheist Ireland |
| Website |
http://www.michaelnugent.com http://twitter.com/micknugent |
Michael Nugent (born 1 June 1961) is an Irish writer and activist. He has written, co-written or contributed to seven books and the comedy musical play I, Keano. He has campaigned on many political issues, often with his late wife Anne Holliday, and he is chairperson of the advocacy group Atheist Ireland. He argues that atheism provides a better model of reality, and a better basis for morality, than believing in gods; that atheists can enjoy the benefits that many people get from religion, without the harmful effects; and that the state should be secular, promoting neither religion nor atheism. He writes a blog about atheism, reason, skepticism and happiness, and he supports Bohemians and Leeds United football clubs.
Nugent was completing a project on the Gospels in primary school when he started to question the "comic book" nature of the Bible. He attended St. Aidan's C.B.S. secondary school in Whitehall in Dublin. He graduated in visual communications in 1983 at the College of Marketing and Design, now part of the Dublin Institute of Technology. He has since addressed graduate events at both institutions. In 1983, he was elected president of the college students' union and students' representative on the Dublin City Council Vocational Education Committee. In 1984, he was defeated when he ran for the post of education officer in the Union of Students in Ireland, in opposition to Joe Duffy, then USI president, who is now a broadcaster with RTÉ. He then took a course in product development, and set up as a freelance designer.
In 2009 Nugent married his longtime partner Anne Holliday, after she was diagnosed with cancer. She died on 9 April 2011, aged 57. Holliday and Nugent were founder members in 1988 of New Consensus, the group which called for the revision of the Republic's territorial claim on the North and devolved government for the people of Northern Ireland based on "mutual respect, civil liberty and freely given allegiance", and they helped to organise the Peace Train campaign to end disruption of the north-south rail link by the IRA. Holliday was also a Simon Community volunteer, a founder member of the Limerick chapter of the Irish Georgian Society, campaigned to save Wood Quay, and was active in residents rights issues. She worked as a secretary at the law firm Matheson Ormsby Prentice, a Dáil secretary for TDs Michael Keating and Roger Garland, personal assistant to National Museum Director Pat Wallace, in media relations and special projects at the Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism, and in the Tánaiste's office at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. Holliday donated her body to medical research and, in 2014, her body was buried in the Dublin medical Schools plot in Glasnevin cemetery in Dublin. After a request from Nugent, the Dublin Medical Schools agreed to change the religious wording on the headstone over the plot to a secular wording, so that it would be inclusive of people of all religious beliefs and none. In 2015 Nugent wrote a tribute to his wife in the Irish Times in which he also wrote about coping with bereavement as an atheist.
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