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
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]