In 2003 it was revealed that a director (and later Chairman) of
The Irish Times,
Major T. B. McDowell, had referred to Gageby as a 'white nigger' for his views and role in the paper during the
Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement's campaign in the 1960s. The comment appeared in a letter from the British Ambassador to Dublin, Sir
Andrew Gilchrist, to Kelvin White, head of the Irish Section of the British Foreign Office and is dated 2 October 1969. Gilchrist was referring to conversations which he had with McDowell where the latter professed himself to be fully behind the British government in the North and hostile to Gageby's coverage of the CRM. However, historian Mark O'Brien notes "Despite his contacts with London, McDowell's actions did not interfere with Gageby's editorials on Northern Ireland", due to the fact McDowell believed in editorial independence (even though McDowell strongly disagreed with Gageby's nationalist views), and because Gageby was making the newspaper commercially successful. Under the 30 year rule, this letter was made available to newspapers on 22 and 23 December 1999, but no newspaper published it at that time. The communiqué was later discovered by the historian, Jack Lane, and published in the
Irish Political Review, a small magazine strongly antagonistic to
The Irish Times, in January 2003. He brought it to the attention of
The Irish Times editor,
Geraldine Kennedy, on 10 January 2003 and she replied on 15 January 2003 saying she was "unable to confirm the veracity of it" and did not publish it. When, on 26 January 2003, the
Sunday Independent (Ireland) published the story,
The Irish Times finally followed the next day, 27 January. Nonetheless, on 24 April 2004 Kennedy defended her position by saying, "The contents of the letter in question were published on January 27, 2003, as soon as its existence was drawn to my attention." ==Private life==