A memorial for Prof Séamus Lawless, who died in an accident on Mount Everest earlier this year, was held in the Chapel this evening
The memorial was attended by Lawless’s family, friends and colleagues, as well as Provost Patrick Prendergast and Vice-Provost Jurgen Barkhoff.
Speaking at the memorial, Prof Vinny Wade, a professor of computer science in the ADAPT centre, said Lawless, who worked as an assistant professor in Trinity’s ADAPT centre, created “a lasting impression on any of us who knew him well”.
“Shay was one of those people who, even if meeting him for the first time, you felt you had become a friend, with the massive welcoming grin, and a glint in the eye shared with you”, he said. “You knew it was always going to be a happy and interesting encounter.”
Lawless was “very quick to understand and learn new things and explore new challenges. But he also possessed a deep interest in other people, and a great warmth and ability to befriend”, Wade said.
Part of Lawless’s charisma, he added, was “his thirst for knowledge and his enthusiasm for solving problems”.
“He created research partnerships throughout college, from humanities to engineering.
It wasn’t just us in TCD. It was across Ireland, the US, South America, and Asia.”
“He instigated new international research challenges, and changed the way research evaluations were performed.”
In addition to his work in ADAPT, Lawless was also heavily involved in Trinity’s Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Institute.
Speaking at the service, Prof Jane Ohlmeyer, director of the Long Room Hub, said Lawless was “a valued member of the digital humanities community”.
She said that Lawless “brought great intellectual firepower to the table, allowing us to tackle complex challenges from a variety of disciplinary perspectives”.
“The sort of cross-disciplinary collaborations we had with Shay are extremely rare. They worked so well because his understanding of history, which far outstripped our knowledge of matters technological”, Ohlmeyer added.
“Shay’s passing last May has left a huge hole in all of our lives”, she said. “We adored him”.
“He loved his students and they loved him, his humility and his wicked sense of humour. The joy that he brought to everything he did, his humanity, and above all his zest for life.”
“Shay was”, she said, “quite simply, the nicest man in the world”.
Lawless, along with his climbing partner Jenny Copeland, was climbing Mount Everest to raise €25,000 for Barretstown charity, which provides support for ill children and their families.
After reaching the summit, Lawless was declared missing when he slipped off a balcony.
It later emerged that Lawless was blown off the mountain when he unclipped his safety ropes to go to the toilet.
His family set up a GoFundMe page to fund the “substantial” costs of a search and rescue mission.
After eight days, by which time almost €270,000 had been raised, the search was called off. Lawless’s family decided that “the extremes of operating at high altitude and the sheer range of the search area ultimately proved too difficult”.
In a statement, the family said that after taking “expert advice”, they had “decided to call off the search rather than risk endangering anyone’s life in the treacherous conditions”.
