Magill, Andrew Philip (1871–1941), civil servant and private secretary to successive chief secretaries for Ireland, was born 6 October 1871 in Upper Rutland St., Dublin, second of three sons of Charles Magill, tobacco factory manager, of Dublin and Dromore, Co. Down, and Marie Magill (née Spengler), French governess, of Lausanne, Switzerland. He was educated at Bective College and the High School, Dublin, and later took an honours degree in history and political science as an external student at TCD.
He started his working career in the national education office as a boy writer in 1887, at the age of 16. A year later, having passed the examination for boy clerkships, he moved to the fisheries office in Dublin castle. In 1891 he passed the examination for second-division clerkships and, after some temporary appointments, moved to the Dublin police courts and thence, in 1892, to the Dublin Metropolitan Police office in Dublin castle. In 1899 he was appointed to the chief secretary's office (administrative division), serving as a clerk until 1904, when he was named private secretary to the under-secretary for Ireland, and served under Sir Antony MacDonnell (qv) (1904–8) and Sir James Dougherty (qv) (1908–11). He was transferred to the Irish land commission in 1911, handling its parliamentary work until 1913, when he was appointed private secretary to Augustine Birrell (qv), the chief secretary for Ireland, in Westminster. He established a particularly close relationship with Birrell, until Birrell's resignation in 1916 after the Easter rising in Dublin, which Magill himself witnessed at first hand.
Magill served two of Birrell's successors – Henry Duke (qv) and Edward Shortt (qv) – before transferring at his own request to what he hoped would be a quieter post as head of the petty sessions office in Dublin in 1918. But many of his courts were closed and his inspectors chased out of town during the violence that preceded the partition of Ireland and the establishment of the Irish Free State. He acted briefly as liaison in Westminster on the government of Ireland bill and then moved north to help establish the new government in Northern Ireland. In 1921 he was appointed assistant secretary to the ministry of home affairs, serving until his resignation in 1925, when his younger brother, W. A. Magill (qv), succeeded him. In 1926 he passed the final examination for students of the Inns of Court of Northern Ireland and was called to the bar in 1927, practising briefly as a barrister. He was made a CB in 1919 and, in his final, post-retirement years, served as a temporary resident magistrate and as chairman of a commission on fisheries administration.
He married (1920) Edith, daughter of James McTier of Vernant Lodge, Belfast. The couple had no children, and died within days of each other: Edith Magill on 11 April and A. P. Magill on 21 April 1941. They are buried in Dundonald cemetery, Belfast.
A. P. Magill's papers were subsequently given to the department of western manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford University. He also left a 350-page memoir, an edited version of which was published by Cork University Press as From Dublin to Stormont: the memoirs of Andrew Philip Magill, 1913–1925 (2003). Leon Ó Broin quoted extensively from this memoir in his biography of Birrell, The chief secretary: Augustine Birrell in Ireland (London, 1969).
A. P. Magill's younger brother Walter Alexander Magill (1879–1950), civil servant, third of their parents' three sons, was born 3 April 1879 in Dublin. He was educated at private schools and later as an external student at TCD, graduating (1903) as a moderator in English literature. He joined the Irish civil service in 1895, serving as a boy clerk with the Irish land commission and the office of public works, and as a second-division clerk with the national education office and the Dublin Metropolitan Police in Dublin castle. In 1912 he was appointed secretary and accountant to the DMP office, and held that position during the Easter rising of 1916.
After the treaty of 1921 and the formation of the Irish Free State, he transferred to the Northern Ireland civil service as principal clerk in the Ministry of Home Affairs, among other things helping to establish the Royal Ulster Constabulary. He succeeded his brother, A. P. Magill, as assistant secretary in 1925 and was appointed permanent secretary in 1935, retiring in 1939. He was awarded the Imperial Service Order in 1933 and was made a CBE in 1937. He married first (1909) Emma Azile Doak of Glen Lagan, Dromara, Co. Down, who died on 18 May 1916, leaving him with one son, Charles Philip, later head of the department of German of the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. He married secondly (1919) Margaret Elizabeth Matthews of Glenavon House, Drumcondra. In Belfast the couple lived on Massey Ave., in the first house outside the gates of Stormont.
W. A. Magill died on 31 March 1950, followed by his wife Margaret (7 July 1956). He is buried in Dundonald cemetery, Belfast, together with his brother Andrew and their mother.