Donal Creedon: Donal Creedon, who has died aged 82, served numerous ministers for agriculture as secretary of the department, before embarking on a new career in the private sector which saw him help create Lakeland Dairies in Co Cavan and steer it to commercial success.
Today, Lakeland is the country's second-largest processing co-operative, operating across 15 counties, and with operations also in the UK and the US. Last year, it had a turnover of €412 million.
Donal Creedon was born in Macroom, Co Cork, in 1924, the son of a farmer. A year later the family moved to Mogeeley in east Cork where Donal's father was a founding member of Imokilly Co-op, which is today part of the Mitchelstown group.
As a boy, Donal had many memories of farm work: milking cows, thinning turnips, bringing cattle or other produce as far as Midleton and Ballinacurra.
Donal's primary education was in Castlemartyr, and from there he won a scholarship to St Colman's College in Fermoy. He had a strong interest in sport, particularly hurling, and played for the school as well as his local GAA club during his teenage years.
Choosing to leave the farm after finishing school, Donal entered the Civil Service in 1944, joining the Department of Agriculture. While working in the offices in Merrion Street by day, he studied for a degree in the nearby Earlsfort Terrace at night, and was awarded a BComm with first class honours in 1950. It was also in the Department of Agriculture that he met his wife, Una, whom he married in the same year.
In the 1960s, Donal was looking for more challenges in his work and he found them when Charles J. Haughey was appointed minister. Haughey was looking for a young energetic private secretary. Their needs coincided, and Donal Creedon began a close working relationship with the minister.
It was one that would see him working closely with every subsequent minister for agriculture until his retirement as secretary in 1989. These included Neil Blaney, Mark Clinton, Brian Lenihan, Austin Deasy, Alan Dukes, Jim Gibbons, Ray MacSharry and Michael O'Kennedy.
In his years with the department, Donal worked on several important and controversial topics, including the TB-eradication scheme, the Land Commission and land policy, the Small Farm Incentive Bonus Scheme, several EU structural directives, and towards the end of his service, some of the more controversial aspects of the beef business.
He also served as the government's representative on the board of the IDA; while Brian Lenihan was minister, Donal chaired the working group on putting forward plans for agricultural development.
On retiring from the Civil Service, Donal chose to join the nascent Lakeland Dairies as chairman. The 1990 merger plans by Killeshandra and Lough Egish were seen by many as the last gasp of the co-operative movement in the northeast, and the offer from Larry Goodman's Food Industries looked to be a reasonable option.
But Donal, as an outsider, was able to harness the differing styles of both co-ops in two counties, and mould it into a united front. He instilled confidence in both camps and spent long nights on the road mustering the farmers and other shareholders behind the idea of a united co-op. When the vote came, the union was approved by a majority of almost five to one. Donal stayed on as chairman of the company, and in 1997 received the Plunkett award for his services to the co-operative movement.
Donal also served on the board of the Irish Agricultural Wholesale Society (IAWS) during the 1990s. His work on national bodies had not ceased either, and he was appointed by the minister, Joe Walsh, to head up the task force on farm sector education following the Teagasc 2000 review.
Early in the new millennium, Donal was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Initially drugs held the disease in check, but its progress could not be halted and he had to retire from all his official roles by 2006. He continued to fight the disease, but finally succumbed last week. His work lives on in the disease-free status of Ireland's cattle herds and the market success of Lakeland Dairies.
Donal Creedon is survived by his wife, Una, children Seamus, Thurloch, Daire, Colman and Moira, and grandchildren James, Michael, Aisling, Cian, Killian, Aifric and Donal.
Donal Creedon: Born December 21st, 1924; died November 15th, 2007.