Career
A former civil servant, Dougal"s career as a journalist began at British Broadcasting Corporation Northern Ireland as a general reporter. He also worked at Ulster Television before taking up the post as Northern editor at RTÉ from 1974 to 1991. Dougal returned to British Broadcasting Corporation Northern Ireland in 1991 as the station"s political editor, replacing Denis Murray upon his promotion to Ireland Correspondent for the corporation"s network news bulletins.
Dougal"s reports were featured on Inside Ulster and Newsline.
In February 1996, Dougal was appointed as the new co-presenter of British Broadcasting Corporation Northern Ireland"s relaunched evening news programme Newsline 6.30. Dougal stood down from presenting the programme after just two months to concentrate on reporting.
Dougal left the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1997 to take up a job for the European Union, initially based in Belfast. He later became the head of the for the United Kingdom until 2004.
He formed a part of UTV"s presenting team for the station"s coverage of that year"s Northern Ireland Assembly election in March 2007.
Dougal, who ran his own broadcast company Dougal Media, also presented and produced a UTV documentary entitled Paisley, from Protest to Power charting the life of Northern Ireland"s First Minister Ian Paisley – the programme aired on the day Paisley took up office in Northern Ireland alongside Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness. Dougal continued to work as a broadcaster, writer and media affairs and public affairs consultant until his death on 15 October 2010 at the age of 65. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from Queen"s University, Belfast for services to the community in Northern Ireland.