Patrick Shea (civil servant)


Patrick Shea CB, OBE, FRSA was a Northern Irish civil servant and the first Roman Catholic since A. N. Bonaparte-Wyse in the 1920s to achieve the rank of permanent secretary of a government department in Northern Ireland.

Career

Shea was born in Delvin, County Westmeath, where his father, a native Irish speaker from West Kerry, was a member of the Royal Irish Constabulary. His father had various postings until the RIC was disbanded in 1922 upon the creation of the Irish Free State via the Anglo-Irish Treaty/Partition of Ireland. Shea's father joined the Royal Ulster Constabulary, attaining the rank of head constable and later clerk of petty sessions in Newry, County Down, where the family later lived.
Patrick Shea attended the Abbey CBS in Newry. Upon leaving, he joined the Northern Ireland Civil Service in June 1926. His postings included:
After retirement he chaired Enterprise Ulster from 1973 to 1979. Shea commented on his own career by recalling that it "was my experience that some Catholics, and especially those in Belfast, where I had been told, the Bishop advised them against seeking Government employment, looked with suspicion on Catholic civil servants. We had joined the enemy, we were lost souls".

Honours

Shea was given an OBE in 1961 and CB 1972. He was made an Honorary member of the Royal Society of Ulster Architects in 1971 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1977. He was a long-time member of the Ulster Arts Club.

Personal life

He married Eithne McHugh in September 1941, and they had a daughter and two sons.