Greg Donaghy, RIp

On July 1, 2020, the Graham Centre's Director, Greg Donaghy, died, a week after suffering a severe heart attack.  Greg was a distinguished historian of Canadian foreign relations, and spent most of his career with Global Affairs Canada, retiring as Head of the Historical Section in the spring of 2019. Born in London, England, of Irish heritage, Greg quickly adapted to Canadian ways and became one of his generation's foremost practitioners of Canadian diplomatic history. He was trained at the University of Toronto (where he was a proud alumnus of St. Michael's College), Carleton University, and the University of Waterloo. 

His doctoral dissertation was published as Tolerant Allies: Canada and the United States, 1963-1968. This work established him as a leading scholar of Canada-US relations, and compelled fundamental revisions to our understanding of the bilateral relationship in a tumultuous and much-mythologized period. At Global Affairs Canada, he edited several volumes of Documents on Canadian External Relations (DCER), the official collection of Canadian diplomatic documents, and, with John Hilliker and Mary Halloran, wrote the third volume of the official departmental history. This volume covered the event-packed years of the first Prime Minister Trudeau, and provides an essential, departmental, perspective on that period. Greg was a remarkably prolific scholar, turning out more than fifty articles and editing a number of collections of essays and conference papers. Eventually he turned to biography, with Grit: The Life and Politics of Paul Martin, Sr., which revived a major figure in Canadian political and diplomatic history for a new generation of readers and was a finalist for the 2015 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize. 

In the summer of 2019 he succeeded his doctoral adviser John English as Director of the Graham Centre, and, latterly, became coeditor of International Journal, published by the Graham Centre and the Canadian International Council. While his tenure at the Graham Centre was tragically short, it was productive. He introduced a new seminar course on Canada's relations with a revolutionary Asia, and co-taught a course on Canadian defence policy. As a historian, he was scrupulous and exacting in his analysis of what the pertinent documents actually said, and demanding in matters of both prose and argumentation, with nothing but scorn for the fashionable and the slipshod. Yet he was always generous to colleagues, particularly younger historians, including those whose views were far from his own. And his short time at the Graham Centre saw him take much pleasure in classroom teaching, where he was a rigorous but empathetic guide to his students, and took great pride and happiness in their successes. His students were among those who will miss his dry wit and gift for easy camaraderie. He is mourned by his extended family, and many friends and colleagues.