Douglas Gageby

rdf:langString Douglas Gageby

rdf:langString (Robert John) Douglas Gageby (29 September 1918 – 24 June 2004) was one of the pre-eminent Irish newspaper editors of his generation. His life is well documented and a book of essays about him, written by many of his colleagues, some of whom had attained fame for their literary achievements, was published in 2006 [Bright Brilliant Days: Douglas Gageby and the Irish Times, ed. Andrew Whittaker, Dublin, A&A Farmar, 2006]. Gageby was born in Dublin, at 54 Upper Beechwood Avenue, Ranelagh, to Thomas Gageby, a Belfast-born civil servant. His mother, Ethel Elizabeth née Smith, was a schoolteacher from county of Cavan. The Gageby family moved to Belfast when Douglas was about three as his father went to work for the Northern Ireland Civil Service following partition. His paternal grandfather Robert Gageby had stood as a Labour parliamentary candidate in Belfast North in 1910, and was a Belfast City Councillor for 20 years, first elected in 1898 as a trade union candidate supported by the Independent Labour Party. He was educated at Belfast Royal Academy and Trinity College Dublin, where he was elected a scholar in Modern Languages (French and German) in 1940. He was also actively involved with the student newspaper Trinity News. He enlisted in the Irish Army as a private soldier at the outbreak of World War II. He was commissioned later, and he served as an intelligence officer. He reported from post-war Germany for The Irish Press and went on to work under Conor Cruise O'Brien in the Irish News Agency. In 1954 he was the first editor of the Evening Press. In 1963 he became editor of The Irish Times, a post he held until 1986, having been brought back from a short retirement in 1974. He is credited with moving the Irish Times from a Unionist organ into a successful Irish journal of record.