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Life
| 1887-1969 [George Chester Duggan; err. George Charles Duggan; err. d.1969]; b. Greystones, Co. Wicklow; son of a banker; ed. High School, Dublin; grad. TCD; entered Civil Service, 1908; served in Admiralty and Office of the Chief Secretary (Dublin Castle); involved in intelligence, and audited the intelligence department of Colonel de Winter in the course of his duties; joined Northern Ireland Civil Service after Independence; became the chairman of sundry Northern Ireland government committees, 1928-1930; appt. Comptroller- and Auditor-General, 1945; ret. 1949; |
| afterwards wrote articles entitled “Northern Ireland, Success or Failure?” (Irish Times, April 1950), and A United Ireland (Irish Times, Dec. 1955), attracting criticism from Northern Ireland; became a member of Irish Assoc. for Cultural, Economic and Social Relations; a bibliophile with a strong theatrical interest, he wrote a study of early Irish theatre as The Stage Irishman (1937), a work frequently quoted on this website; he lost two brothers at Gallipoli and wrote a poem in commemoration (The Watchers on Gallipoli, 1921); d. at home at Mullagh, Co. Cavan, 15 June 1969; a memoir of his time in Dublin Castle is held in the National Library of Ireland as WS 1,076. DIB. |
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Bibliographical details
The Stage Irishman (Dublin & Cork: Talbot Press; London: Longmans & Co. 1937), 331pp., ill. [12 lvs. of pls.; front. by Jack B. Yeats], 8°, and Do. [facs. rep.] (NY: Benjamin Blom [1969]), 331pp. [‘Chronological list of plays’, pp.318-20.
The following held by Trinity College Library (Dublin), and presumably owned formerly by G. C. Duggan: |
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| Note: The Dublin printers have been identified from the ornament files held by the Library. |
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Commentary
Ireland of the Welcomes (July-Aug. 1997): This issue contains a 2pp. article by John Gresham on the Duggan family name which includes a reference to George Chester Duggan (1887-1967), a prominent civil servant in both Northern Ireland and in Dublin. Gresham is author of Tracing Your Irish Ancestors and Clans and Families of Ireland. Others cited are including poet John O’Dugan (d. 1372) of east Galway, Bishop of Clonfert Patrick Duggan (1813-1896) of Galway, Church of Ireland Bishop (1970-1985) Dr. John Coote Duggan of Offaly, Irish nationalist Eamonn Duggan (1874-1936), Cork businessman Noel C. Duggan (b. 1933). (See Duggan-family website; accessed 09.11.2011)
Eamon McCann, “What unionists must do now to get the thumbs up from Europe", in Belfast Telegraph (30 April 2009), writes of Robert Ramsay, a senior civil servant of 40 years standing in Belfast and Brussels who writes in his memoir Ringside Seats that the Northern-Ireland Unionists have to establish their place among the smaller nations of the EU, quoting: “in embracing the opportunity to define (themselves) as one of the ‘European peoples’ which feature in the EU treaties... This would put them on a par with the Catalans, Basques, Corsicans, Bretons and South Tyroleans, and other ethnic groups”. He cites Ramsay’s support of the Ulster Scots identity and Ulster Scots language movement, quoting again: “To me, the most important aspect of the development of the Ulster Scots identity is that it would take (unionism) out of the internationally damaging context of religious division, into one which is not only understandable, but is even fashionably in harmony with the zeitgeist of today’s European Union.” And further: “The average unionist now views GB in a very different light... Psychologically, the union is over on both sides of the Irish Sea. The unionist community needs to acquire a post-union identity.” (See online; accessed 09.11.2011.)
Tweet: The column is answered in a tweet from Pat [inter al. - including Brian Walker (QUB)], Pat Crowley writes: “This reminds me of the views of another civil servant Chester Duggan (1887-1969). He joined the civil service in Dublin Castle after graduating from Trinity College and opted to go North on partition to serve in the new northern administration. He was I believe no 2 in the civil service in the 1930s and 40s. On retirement to Dublin he wrote a series of articles in 1950 in the Irish Times con[c]erning Northern Ireland and in I think November 1953 a week long series of articles exporing the practicalities of any new north/south arrangement. He seemed to suggest an Ulster of significant autonomy within a new Ireland, interesting articles. Two of his brothers were killed in Gallopoli [sic for Gallipoli]. He also wrote an unpublished memoir of his times in Dublin Castle.’ (Posted 01.05.09.)
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Notes
Daddy, Daddy: See references to Duggan’s father and his own services as auditor of Colonel de Winter’s intelligence apparatus in the Castle in an article in defence of conspiracy theories, at Indymedia (14 Sept. 2007) [online]. The article includes a reference to his MS on Dublin Castle apparently cited as WS 1,076.
Namesake? G. C. Duggan, author of government reports in Northern Ireland and The Stage Irishman (1937) is variously listed as George Chester and George Charles Duggan in library catalogues co-ordinated in COPAC; [online].
Louie Bennett: Four autograph letters by Louie Bennett dated 17th, 20th & 31st August, and 6th Sept. 1955, discuss the impact of a pamphlet by a ‘Mr. Duggan’ on readers in Northern Ireland and suggesting a meeting with same, as well as an undertaking to draw in Sean O’Faolain, adding: ‘or are we women too wild for the cautious male creature?’ (Slipped into a copy of R. M. Fox, Louie Bennett: Her Life and Times, 1958, held in the library of Sybil le Brocquy; now in the collection of Bruce Stewart.)
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