An appreciation: Conor Brady recalls the man who made The Irish Times what it is.
Douglas Gageby was our editor and our hero in the exciting, frenetic, idealised world that was Irish Times journalism in the late 1960s. He was dynamic, unpredictable, inspirational and he generated an energy-field around him that infected even the most cynical and somnolent in the editorial offices of The Irish Times.
His diamond-toughness was matched by a capacity for deep human compassion. His patriotism ran in parallel with a commitment to the great post-War experiment of a united and peaceful Europe. His mind was endlessly inquiring and eclectic. In the course of a drink or a meal it could run from religion to food to history to fly-fishing. He was utterly indifferent to sport of any kind - apart from rowing. When he had to focus on an issue, the intensity of his concentration could be awesome.
He had fixed points in his philosophy of life. He loved Dorothy and his family. He loved journalism - but not just the journalism of The Irish Times. He had a great love of country, expressed in his loyalty to the Army in which he had served, his admiration for the non-violent nationalism of the SDLP, and his fascination with the people and the countryside around Moynalty in Co Meath, where he went in quiet times to read and fish and walk.
He and Dorothy shared with my Ann and our family an enthusiasm for that region of Catalan, France, known as the Roussillon. It often figured in his "Y" column, when he extolled the produce of the Languedoc, the warm sea of the Côte Vermeille or the clear air of the Albères mountains.
His principles of journalism were at once simple and uncompromising. He prized accuracy and honesty. He abhorred laziness and assumption. He always acknowledged that ours is an imperfect craft, executed under strain and against deadlines. He was generally forgiving of a misjudgment but was implacable where he encountered arrogance or bias. He never thought that journalism could be truly objective. What he sought in writers who worked for him was detail, accuracy, curiosity and fairness.
There are myths about Douglas. One is that he eschewed the company of those in power. Not so. He would regularly meet with men and women in key positions of influence across Irish society, often through the "Murphy Club". But insofar as the political and power structure of this State was concerned, he remained in many ways an uncomprehending outsider. He relied almost wholly on his great friend and colleague John Healy to be his guide through the labyrinth of Southern Irish politics.
He was a republican. But in the tradition of Tone, McCracken, Emmet and his beloved Armour of Ballymoney. He held fervently to the conviction that one day, Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter would really rejoice in the common name of Irishman. Perversely, this gave rise to another myth, that he was soft on the violence of those who hijacked the republican label.
In reality, he believed absolutely in the supremacy of the State and of its agents, duly appointed and answerable to its elected representatives. Once he told me that had he been editor in 1976 when The Irish Times investigated allegations of abuse by the Garda "Heavy Gang", the articles would never have seen the light of day. Fergus Pyle, editor from 1974 to early 1977, took a different view, and to his great credit, courageously ran with the material.
Douglas had an extraordinary capacity for mobilising and stimulating those around him to give of their best. He recognised that a successful newspaper requires a multiplicity of talents. So he built around himself a team of disparate geniuses. There was Bruce Williamson, the supremely literate poet and classicist; Donal Foley, the Irish-speaking news editor with flair, instinct and imagination. There was Gerry Mulvey, the professional news editor, who watched every story and every detail with the eye of a hawk. And Ken Gray, the calm, imperturbable administrator.
His relationship with Tom McDowell, later chairman and chief executive of The Irish Times remains an enigma. Their's was the partnership that anchored the newspaper's success. Gageby's editorial genius and McDowell's business acumen combined to make The Irish Times a valuable title so that in 1974 they were both able to become - by the standards of the time - rich men, when they sold their shares to the new Irish Times Trust.
Douglas could be blindly unreasonable and judgmental. Once, when his telephone line to Moynalty was disrupted, he penned an editorial headed "Sack Jim Mitchell" (the minister for communications). Yet he could be infuriatingly indulgent. He took a benign view of Charles Haughey, mediated through the judgment of Healy, forgiving him almost everything.
His view of newspapers was at once idealistic and hard-headed. He sometimes made a point of grumbling about the commercial side of the organisation within the hearing of other journalists. But he knew well that a successful paper is a marriage between editorial and business talents. "It's the hardest job in the world," he said, "trying to sell ad space in a newspaper. Journalists have it easy by comparison."
If you asked him what makes a good journalist, he would say "curiosity". When I went for interview as a young graduate he asked me: "If you were in my house and I left you to go and make a cup of tea, would you read the letters on my mantelpiece?"
I said I would. "Good man," came the response. "Be here on the 1st of October and there's a job for you."
He had no formal training as a journalist or editor. None of us did in those days. But he understood intuitively the things that are now taught at university to would-be practitioners of the trade. He grasped the necessity for specialisation in journalism before anyone else in the country.
He used to say that a newspaper was a bit like a Christmas pudding - it had to have all sorts of ingredients to appeal to the different tastes and preferences of its readers. Thus, to him, the features pages or the arts pages were as deserving of his attention as the front page. He spent countless hours with me in the late 1970s working on the design of a new television listings page.
Little was left to chance. Important things were planned carefully, even though he might represent it otherwise. It is probably 20 years since he told me over a drink one night that when he died nobody would know about it until four days later when his funeral would have taken place.
Behind his vital absorption in the world about him, there was a spiritual dimension. He distrusted organised religion and churches. But he was fascinated by the Polish Pope who came to Ireland in 1979. He joked that he had probably become the first Catholic editor of The Irish Times in spite of himself.
He oversaw the rise of women journalists through the newspaper and took immense delight in their successes and triumphs. In spite of the occasional volcanic outburst, he was limitlessly tolerant of human weakness. Once a particularly recidivist correspondent was summoned to his office for some unforgivable offence. He left with a raise.
He had a clear and firm view of what a newspaper's function should be in society. He shared with John Delane of the Times the certainty that its duty is to publish all it knows - regardless of the consequences. He would not be led into any acknowledgment that newspapers should be responsible, respectable or restrained. He knew when to hold back, to hint rather than bawl. He knew that a criticism expressed in sorrow is usually more effective than one vented in anger.
G.K. Chesterton articulated a view of the newspaper's role that might have been written to encapsulate Douglas Gageby's view of what is done in a good newspaper. "A poet writing in the silence of his study may or may not have an intellectual right to despise the journalist. But I greatly doubt that he would not be morally the better if he saw the great lights burning on through darkness until dawn and heard the roar of the printing wheels weaving the destinies of another day. Here at least is a school of labour and of some rough humility, the largest work ever published anonymously since the great Christian Cathedrals."
Conor Brady succeeded Douglas Gageby as Editor of The Irish Times in 1986