The ICU website has two brief items dealing with the 1947 Irish champion. The longer one, by Enda Rohan, includes the photo at right, taken at the Irish Championship in Belfast in 1950, describes him as a principal officer at the Department of Posts and Telegraphs who was active in Irish Chess Union and Leinster Chess Union organisation, and says he withdrew from organisation completely as a result of sniping by Dónal O’Sullivan at an LCU general meeting.
The second one, by Joe Keenan, consists of just two sentences, saying that by the end of the 1950s he had withdrawn from active participation in chess events.
Nothing else seemed to be known. However, in putting together the report on the 1947 championship, I found considerably more, including some very helpful information on a genealogical website. In particular, there is an interesting backstory to his disappearance from Irish chess.
His parents were John Duignan, born in 1870 in Derrinisky, Co. Roscommon, and Julia, née Naughton (alternatively Norton), born in 1890 in Kilroe East, Co. Galway. John served as a Sergeant in the U.S. Army from 1904-1913, and they married in Manhattan, New York, in 1913.
Patrick Alphonsus Duignan was born at Derreenavoggy, Arigna, Co. Roscommon on February 26, 1916. His birth cert shows his birth was registered much later, on September 26, 1918.
At some point, the family moved to Dublin, and Paddy went to O’Connell School on North Richmond Street.
A profile in the Irish Independent shortly after he won the championship said that he entered chess circles in 1941, and was only playing in senior, i.e., highest level, competitions for three years at the time he became champion. During that time he had won Leinster Intermediate and Senior Championships, the Irish Civil Service Championship, and the Oireachtas Cup.
A major life change came in 1964, when he was seconded for a year as a United Nations advisor to the Arab Postal Union, and he departed to Cairo with his wife and three children. The initially reported year seems to have turned into a much longer commitment, though at some point his wife and children returned to Ireland, due to school quality. Paddy was reported as returning to Ireland in March 1967 after his posting, but was back in the region again in 1973, when he made the front pages, having been caught up in the Yom Kippur war:
“The wife of an Irishman heading a United Nations postal development in Damascus, whose home was destroyed in the Israeli bomb attack, was waiting last night in Dublin for confirmation that her husband was safe.” (
Irish Press , October 10, 1973, p. 1)
The report said that he had been in Damascus for the previous 18 months, as project manager for the Arab Postal Institute, having previously spent two years with his family in Cairo. A front page report in the same day’s Evening Herald reported that Mrs. Duignan had received a telegram from her husband saying that he and a friend were safe.
Paddy Duignan returned to Dublin, where he died on September 2, 1997.
(Cf. the Players and Players: References pages.)