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The Flood of tributes, many of them verging on adulation, which marked Donal McCann's death would have been impossible during his lifetime. He simply would not have allowed them. At his funeral Mass a friend was quoted as saying: "We would not have been able to hold this event if Donal had a say in it."

Many tributes made much of his humility. Jack Kroll's quote in Newsweek that McCann had an ego "one-twentieth of the size of a Hollywood bit player's" was the most repeated remark. Kroll's judgment was right, but only partly so. Not only had Donal McCann an undersized ego but he was very active indeed in cutting the egos of others down to size.