The Irish Times reports the death of former owner, Major McDowell, Sept 10, 2009

national | arts and media | news report Thursday September 10, 2009 10:13 by Captain Green - The Captains Without the Kings

The Major "kept clear of involvement in editorial content", reports Irish Times

The Irish Times reports the death of former owner, Major McDowell, September 10, 2009:

Major Thomas Bleakley McDowell
Former Irish Times chairman dies, aged 86

Widely known as “The Major”, he kept clear of involvement in editorial content, insisting that that was the domain of the editor.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0910/1....html

The Irish Times changed during the Major era, from a newspaper reflecting the protected but significant interests of a distinct Protestant business class to one that reflected the moderninsing interests of Irish capitalism. It was not as smooth a transition as the Irish Times usually reports.

In 1969 Major McDowell was 'hot under the coller" about the Irish Times. So wrote Andrew Gilchrist, the British Ambassador in Dublin to Whitehall. He went on:

The Sunday Independent reports major (though secret) editorial interference in the Irish Times - 26 Jan 2003 [CLICK TO READ]

McDowall [sic] is one of the five (Protestant) owners of the Irish Times, and he and his associates are increasingly concerned about the line the paper is taking under its present (Protestant, Belfast-born) Editor, Gageby, whom he described as a very fine journalist, an excellent man, but on Northern questions a renegade or white nigger.

And apart from Gageby's editorial influence, there is difficulty lower down, whereby sometimes unauthorised items appear and authorised items are left out.

See:
"There is Difficulty Lower Down Whereby Sometimes Unauthorised Items Appear"
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64231

Why was the 2nd October 1969 letter from the British Ambassador to Whitehall, not published when it was released by the British Public Records office in 2000:

The Fourth Man' or 'Who Else Was in the Queue in Kew?'
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/64944

Was it the end or the start of an era in the Irish Times and in Irish Society?

Gageby and McDowell changed the Irish Times as Irish society changed during the 1960s. Circulation grew steadily. The Times was less fearful of growing liberal sentiment and its last Protestant editor, Gageby, was in tune with Irish Nationalism. When the North blew up in 1968-69, extensive Irish Times reporting under its Protestant nationalist editor was a change too far for the Major. He offered his secret services to the British government and sought its help in August 1969, the month that British troops appeared on the streets of Belfast and Derry.

This is an Irish story and a newspaper story and also a story about a newspaper

On the mystery surrounding the non-reporting of the 'white nigger' letter in 2000, its eventual appearance in 2003, and how that was reported then in the Irish Times:

A little subversion in Ireland
by Niall Meehan

‘Cock-up’ rather than conspiracy. That is the Irish Times view of why the paper failed to adequately report secret meetings between the then Chief Executive of the Irish Times, Major Thomas B McDowell and the British Ambassador, Sir Andrew Gilchrist, in 1969.

The British Public Records Office in Kew released the correspondence under the thirty-year rule in January 2000. Rachel Donnelly of the Irish Times London office reported the story on January 3 2000. The Irish Independent also reported the story, though with significant information that the Times left out......

[Read on:]
http://www.spinwatch.org/-articles-by-category-mainmenu...eland

The British Ambassador's reports what Major McDowell said about his editor, Douglas Gageby [CLICK TO READ]