Fellows' Lives Lived
Arthur Green
Arthur Green, a Fellow at the Weatherhead Center in 1982–83, died on November 16, 2006, at the age of 78. Surviving him are his wife, Rosemary, and two adult sons. His friend, J. Brian Garrett, a Fellow in 1977–78, remembers him fondly as “a remarkable public servant.”
In an obituary in the Irish Times, Mr. Green was lauded as a long-time civil servant in Northern Ireland. He served in the government’s Department of Finance and Court Service and as under secretary in the Northern Ireland Department of Education. Beyond his life of professional service, Mr. Green retained deep interests in politics and in literature. The Times called him “never a unionist with a capital U,” and yet “he saw himself as more British than Irish, and more Atlanticist than European. In the 1990s he joined the Conservative Party and was for a time active in that organization in south Down. He was a founder member of the independent study group, the Cadogans, where his contributions on cultural identity, education and related matters were particularly valued.” In his retirement, Mr. Green spent six winters both generously and vigorously in Poland, teaching English to college students.
The Irish Times observed further, “Soft-spoken and unfailingly courteous, Arthur Green was a very civil and civilised public servant, never a bureaucrat, a bookman and a man of letters, not of red tape.” The Weatherhead Center is honored to have called him a friend and a member of our scholarly community.