Obituary - Noel Coghlan, economist with RBS succeeded by Alex Salmond

Died: April 20, 2017

NOEL Coghlan, who has died aged 78, was a leading European economist and political adviser and a deputy chief economist in the Royal Bank of Scotland before Alex Salmond, the former First Minister, took on the role.

After his stint at the Royal Bank of Scotland, Mr Coghlan moved on to the United Nations affiliated World Bank, where he led economic missions to various Middle Eastern countries, including Iraq and the Yemen Arab Republic.

His spell at the World Bank was followed by a brief period in the Department of Finance in Dublin before he moved on to the European Commission in Brussels, where he acted as the deputy chief of staff to the Irish member of the commission, Dick Burke.

He subsequently served in the commission's Directorate General for External Relations, finishing a distinguished career as a senior member of that Directorate General's Celllule de Perspective.

Following his retirement, he was active in the voluntary sector in Dublin and studied theology, publishing extensively in journals including Studies, The Furrow and Doctrine and Life.

Mr Coghlan, a graduate of the London School of Economics, was commissioned into the Royal Artillery as a young man. He was posted to the British Army on the Rhine, following in the footsteps of four uncles, who had served in the First and Second World Wars.

On leaving the British Army, he worked briefly for the Economist Intelligence Unit before taking up the position with RBS.

One of his fellow students, the former Irish President Mary McAleese, has fond memories of studying Canon Law with Mr Coghlan at the Milltown Institute in Dublin.

Mr Coghlan was a regular speaker at the Humbert International Summer School in Ballina, Killala and Kilcummin, Co Mayo, from 1992, always accompanied by his Japanese wife, Yuriko. He eventually became co-director of the school with John Cooney, the Scots-born author and journalist, who founded the prestigious discussion forum for politicians, writers, academics, leading churchmen and women, judges and lawyers.

Alex Salmond, Tioseachs Enda Kenny, Albert Reynolds, Bertie Ahern, Brian Cowen, Ireland’s first woman president, Mary Robinson, and many other distinguished speakers have made contributions at the school.

Noel Coghlan was one of these, a remarkable character, who could easily be described as an eccentric, but a likeable one. He was not irascible like some. He made a number of erudite contributions at the Humbert School, drawing on his great depth of experience in politics and so many other walks of life. He was always interesting - and interested.

Blantyre-born John Cooney, who first met Mr Coghlan when he was appointed European correspondent of the Irish Times in Brussels, said: “To sum up Noel’s varied and remarkable life as a public civil servant, Christian intellectual and latterly theologian would truly require a biography. He was an outstanding Irishman who made Brussels and the world the centre of his activities and thinking for the past 45 years.

“Towards his much lamented and premature end, he had come to define himself as a Belgian in honour of his adopted homeland of almost half a century.”

In 2014, Mr Coghlan addressed the delicate issue of Irish participation in the Great War, focusing on the Connaught Rangers, who served Crown and Country with distinction from its establishment in 1793 to its disbanding following Irish independence in 1922.

He had an ongoing interest in the reconstruction as a memorial of an army tank which was wrecked at Poelkapelle, near Ypres, in Belgium. This was where his uncle, Major Jack Coghlan MC, of the Royal Irish Regiment and Royal Tank Corps, who virtually adopted Noel, made a glorious if not quite victorious attempt to save the village from German occupation.

Mr Coghlan told pupils at his old school, Castleknock Union College, Dublin: “This gallant officer, unable to see anything through the visor of his tank, had hopped out and was guiding that wonder of military technology with his cane. All was well until he reached the cross roads at Poelkapelle.

“There, spotting the remains of a pub, De Zwan, he decided to halt to steady his crew and find his bearings. Alas, for the then Lieutenant Coghlan and his valiant band, the German artillery had already registered the bearings of De Zwan and with a single shell disposed of Damon II.

“The people of Poelkapelle warmed to the young Irish officer who had lost his tank outside their village pub in a gallant, albeit not quite successful attempt to free their village. Eventually the walls of De Zwan, newly reconstructed, sprouted photographs of the Lieutenant and his troops.

“After the war, in the interest of promoting tourism, the tank was moved to the new Market Square, where for the local children it was a favourite play place where they regularly received pennies from the tourists.”

A commemoration of the failed operation takes place annually in the village where a monument to the Royal Tank Regiment was erected in 2009 and a full-scale replica of Lieutenant Coghlan’s tank, Damon II, is now under construction in the square.

Noel and his cousin Mary, a consultant psychiatrist, have been faithful attenders at the annual commemoration of Major Jack’s valiant attempt to save their village.

Noel Coghlan died in hospital of cancer. He is survived by his wife, Yuriko.

BILL HEANEY