Life
1918-2004; b. Ranelagh, Co. Dublin, son of Belfast-born civil servant and Ethel Elizabeth [neé Smith], a Church of Ireland Cavan teacher; 29 Sept. 1918; family moved to Belfast where his father worked in government after 1922; and where a gf. was a Belfast City Councillor for 20 years ed. Belfast Royal Acad. Institute and TCD (Schol. in Mod. Langs.); worked on Trinity News; joined in Irish Army during the Emergency [1939-45]; posted to Intelligence as a German speaker and oversaw correspondence of Luftwaffe crews in the Curragh camp; joined the Irish Press in 1945 and reported from post-war Germany; appt. assistant editor Sunday Press 1949 and editor-in-chief of Irish News Agency 1951;
appt. first editor Evening Press, 1954; joint-managing editor The Irish Times 1959; editor, 1963–74; also 1977–86, succeeded by Conor Brady but resuming the post during a management crisis; accredited with creating the liberal-pluralist style of the modern The Irish Times; Gageby was in the spotlight in 2003 again when a letter revealing that the Irish Times director [Major] T. B. McDowell had called in a ‘white nigger’ in relation to his coverage of Northern Irish Civil Rights; d. 24 June 2004; m. Dorothy [née Lester - dg. of Sean Lester, Gen. Sec. of League of Nations]; a son Patrick [“Paddy”] Gageby is an SC; a Douglas Gageby Irish Times Fellowship was established for young journalists in 2005.
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Criticism
Andrew Whittaker, ed., Bright, Brilliant Days: Douglas Gageby and The Irish Times (Dublin: A&A Farmar 2006), 242pp. [contribs. incl. Bruce Arnold, Maeve Binchy, John Bowman, John Horgan, Conor Brady, Olivia O’Leary, Michael Viney, et al.] See also E. D. Doyle, [ a tribute], An Irishman’s Diary, Irish Times (17 July 2004);
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