Seán Lester (28 September 1888 – 13 June 1959) was an Irish diplomat who was the last secretary-general of the League of Nations from 31 August 1940 to 18 April 1946. Early life He was born in County Antrim, the son of a Protestant grocer. Although the town of Carrickfergus, where he was born and raised, was strongly Unionist, he joined the Gaelic League as a youth and was won over to the cause of Irish nationalism. As a young man, he joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood. He worked as a journalist for the North Down Herald and a number of other northern papers before he moved to Dublin, where he found a job at the Freeman's Journal. By 1919, he had risen to its news editor. After the Irish War of Independence, a number of his friends joined the new government of the Irish Free State. Lester was offered and accepted the position as director of publicity. He married Elizabeth Ruth Tyrrell in 1920 by whom he had three daughters. Diplomatic career In 1923, he joined Ireland's Department of External Affairs. He was sent to Geneva in 1929 to replace Michael MacWhite as Ireland's Permanent Delegate to the League of Nations. In 1930, he succeeded in organising Ireland's election to the Council (or executive body) of the League of Nations for a three years. Lester often represented Ireland at Council meetings and stood in for the Minister for External Affairs. He became increasingly involved in the work of the League, particularly in its attempts to bring a resolution to two wars in South America. His work brought him to the attention of the League Secretariat and began his transformation from national to international civil servant. When Peru and Colombia had a dispute over a town in the headwaters of the Amazon, Lester presided over the committee that found an equitable solution. He also presided over the less-successful committee when Bolivia and Paraguay went to war over the Gran Chaco. In 1933, Lester was seconded to the League's Secretariat and sent to Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland), as the League of Nations' High Commissioner from 1934 to 1937. The Free City of Danzig was the scene of an emerging international crisis between Nazi Germany and the international community over the issue of the Polish Corridor and the Free City's relationship with the Third Reich. Lester repeatedly protested to the German government