Shea, Patrick (1908–86), civil servant and author, was born 27 April 1908 at Delvin, Co. Westmeath, second son of Patrick Shea, RIC district inspector, and Mary Catherine Shea (née McLaughlin). Shea's childhood was spent in Athlone, where his father was stationed, and here he attended St Clare's convent and Deerpark national school. Following his father's subsequent transfers, he also attended a catholic primary school in Rathfriland, Co. Down, and a protestant high school in Clones, Co. Monaghan. When the RIC was disbanded in 1922 the Shea family moved to Newry, Co. Down, and Patrick completed his education at the Abbey CBS. Although the headmaster there had stopped entering pupils for the Northern Ireland civil service exams due to repeated rejections, Shea privately sat the exam in 1926 and was offered a position as a clerical officer in the Ministry of Labour.
In 1937, after most of his contemporaries had been appointed to senior clerk level, Shea wrote a strongly worded memorandum complaining about his lack of promotion in the service. He was subsequently promoted to the position of assistant principal at the Ministry of Finance under Sir Wilfrid Spender (qv). It later transpired that the transfer from Labour to Finance had occurred because the minister of labour objected to a catholic occupying such a position in his ministry. A year later a similar problem arose when, although Shea was recommended for appointment as private secretary to the permanent secretary, the new minister of finance, Sir Maynard Sinclair (qv), decided that it would be injudicious to appoint a catholic to the post.
Shea's responsibilities were, however, expanded in 1941 when he was made secretary of the civil service committee for Northern Ireland and secretary to the joint exchequer board. The war years brought further promotion to the rank of deputy principal in the Ministry of Finance, and in December 1947 he was appointed principal officer in the Ministry of Education. In 1958, however, the permanent secretary at Education, Reginald S. Brownell (qv), informed him that, as a catholic, it was unlikely that he would receive further promotion. Shea subsequently asked for a transfer to the public building and works department of the Ministry of Finance, and in 1963 was made assistant secretary in charge of the works department. Finally, in spite of Brownell's caution, he was appointed permanent secretary of the Ministry of Education in December 1969; he held this appointment till his retirement in 1973.
On joining the civil service Shea developed an interest in both rugby and golf. His principal hobby, however, was drama, and he was a founder member of a dramatic society in the Ministry of Labour in the early 1930s. During years of frustration at the Ministry of Education he also began to write, and his first literary attempts, a one-act play and a short story, were both accepted for broadcast by Radio Éireann. His next play, ‘A lady in a cage’, was broadcast by the BBC and was performed by amateur dramatic societies in five continents. Encouraged by this initial success, he wrote a full three-act play, ‘Waiting night’, which the Abbey Theatre produced in 1957. In addition to further radio plays and short stories, Shea was commissioned by the BBC to compile a series of eight half-hour variety programmes and a serial programme on the Australian bushranger Ned Kelly. His autobiography, Voices and the sound of drums, was published by Blackstaff Press in 1981.
In recognition of his literary achievements, Shea was appointed president of the Ulster Arts Club in 1961. In 1971 he was also made an honorary member of the Royal Society of Ulster Architects on account of his association with them during his time in the Ministry of Finance works division. After his retirement from the civil service in 1973, he became chairman of Enterprise Ulster and in the same year was appointed to the senate of QUB. He was awarded the OBE in 1961 and the CBE in 1972. He died at his residence at Adelaide Park, Belfast, on 31 May 1986 and was buried in St Mary's cemetery, Newry.
He married (September 1941) Eithne, daughter of Michael and Mary J. MacHugh, of Balmoral, Belfast. They initially set up house in Bangor, Co. Down, but returned to Belfast in 1948. They had two sons, Tim and Peter, and a daughter, Judy. At the time of Shea's death, Maurice Hayes, permanent secretary at the Department of Health and Social Services, described him as ‘a man of great experience and administrative ability’ and noted that ‘he preserved his compassion and a respect for the dignity of the individual and sense of proportion in a wide and varied career’ (Irish News, 3 June 1986).