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Seán Lester

Seán Lester (28 September 1888 – 13 June 1959) was an Irish diplomat who was the last secretary-general of the League of Nations from 31 August 1940 to 18 April 1946.

Seán Lester

John Ernest Lester

(1888-09-28)28 September 1888
Carrickfergus, Ireland

13 June 1959(1959-06-13) (aged 70)
Galway, Ireland

Elizabeth Tyrrell
(m. 1920)

3

Journalist

Early life[edit]

He was born in County Antrim as John Ernest Lester, the son of a Protestant grocer Robert Lester and his wife, the former Henrietta Ritchie. Although the town of Carrickfergus, where he was born and raised, was strongly Unionist, he joined the Gaelic League as a youth and was won over to the cause of Irish nationalism.[1] As a young man, he joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood. He worked as a journalist for the North Down Herald and a number of other northern papers before he moved to Dublin, where he found a job at the Freeman's Journal. By 1919, he had risen to its news editor.


After the Irish War of Independence, a number of his friends joined the new government of the Irish Free State. Lester was offered and accepted the position as director of publicity.


He married Elizabeth Ruth Tyrrell in 1920 by whom he had three daughters.[1]

Stephen Ashworth Barcroft: The international civil servant: the League of Nations career of Sean Lester, 1929–1947; Dublin 1973

: The last secretary general: Sean Lester and the League of Nations; Dublin 1999; ISBN 1-86059-108-6

Douglas Gageby

Arthur W. Rovine: The first fifty years: the secretary-general in world politics 1920–1970; Leyden 1970;  90-218-9190-5

ISBN

Michael Kennedy: Ireland and the League of Nations 1919–1946: politics, diplomacy and international relations; Dublin 1996

Paul McNamara: Sean Lester, Poland and the Nazi Takeover of Danzig; Irish Academic Press Ltd 2008;  0-7165-2969-6

ISBN

Archived 12 March 2015 at the Wayback Machine

Biography

Archived 2 February 2017 at the Wayback Machine biographical article from the producers of an Irish documentary on Lester.

Nation Builders: Sean Lester

League of Nations Archives, with a short biography

League of Nations Archives, Private Archives of Sean Lester

Documents on Irish Foreign Policy website

in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW

Newspaper clippings about Seán Lester