Jackson, Guy (1921–72), sportsman and company executive, was born 20 September 1921 in Dublin, one of two sons of Arthur Jackson, of England, and Edith Jackson (née Philip). His father had come to Ireland at the turn of the century to work for Arthur Guinness, Son & Co. Ltd in Dublin. Educated at Marlborough College in England, he joined the British army, seeing service in the Royal Artillery (1940–46), including action in the Far East. After the second world war he studied chemistry at Brasenose College, Oxford University, where he excelled at hockey and tennis, prefacing the start of a distinguished sports career. In 1950 he returned to Dublin to work for Guinness. From 1948 to 1960 he represented Ireland in eleven Davis Cup tennis ties, playing on sides that won ties in 1948, 1950, and 1956. One of his earliest successes in the competition was an excellent victory over the top Danish player, Kurt Nielsen. In 1952, partnered by N. Kumar, he won the Irish men's doubles title, and he repeated this success the following year, partnered by Joe Hackett. Also in 1953, he and Hackett reached the last sixteen in the men's doubles at Wimbledon. In 1951 and 1958 he won the Fitzwilliam Club singles title. He also excelled at squash, earning five international caps for Ireland at the sport between 1953 and 1955. In 1952, with his defeat of Neville Hooper, he became the only Irishman apart from Jonah Barrington to beat a top-ten-ranked English player. The same year, as an inside forward with the Three Rock Rovers club, he earned his only international cap at hockey, scoring twice in a drawn match against Scotland in Belfast.
Jackson was a prominent business executive. In 1953 he was appointed brewer in charge of malt at the Guinness brewery in Dublin, and in 1962 he was transferred by Guinness to its brewery in Park Royal, west London, to take charge of the overseas planning group. He returned to Dublin in 1963, and on his forty-second birthday was appointed to the board of Guinness in both London and Dublin, acting as sales director in Ireland. In 1965, on the foundation of Guinness Group Sales (Ireland) Ltd, he was appointed its managing director. He also served on the board of Irish Ale Breweries, Harp Lager (Ireland) Ltd, and Arthur Guinness, Son & Co. Ltd, Belfast. From 1967 to 1969 he was president of the Federation of Irish Industries and became assistant managing director of Guinness Ireland at approximately the same time. A member of the National Industrial Economic Council, he spoke out strongly in public against such government policies as price control, and since the early 1960s had argued for Ireland to enter a wide economic grouping. He and Con Smith (qv) were credited to a large extent with being the driving forces behind the formation of the Confederation of Irish Industry, which replaced the Federation of Irish Industries; Jackson was president (1969–70) of the new organisation and chairman of its international relations committee, with responsibility for overseeing the transition to EC membership. From January 1971 until his death, he was in charge of the rationalisation programme undertaken by Guinness in Dublin; he was credited with putting the Dublin brewery back on a competitive footing as its deputy managing director, and was likely to have been its next managing director. He died 18 June 1972 in the aircraft disaster at Staines, near London, along with a delegation of Irish businessmen on a fact-finding mission to Brussels.
He married (1953) Amanda Pringle; they had two sons and one daughter, and lived in Co. Dublin at Balgriffin and (1970) at ‘Wellfield’, Raheny.