Margaret McDonagh, Baroness McDonagh

Margaret Josephine McDonagh, Baroness McDonagh (26 June 1961 – 24 June 2023) was a British Labour politician who served as General Secretary of the Labour Party from 1998 to 2001. She later worked as a management consultant and was a co-president of the Labour Party Irish Society, and sat in the House of Lords as a life peer from 2004 until her death.

Early life and education Margaret Josephine McDonagh was born on 26 June 1961 in Mitcham, Surrey, to an Irish family. She was the younger of two daughters of Cumin McDonagh, a construction labourer, and Breda McDonagh , a psychiatric nurse. Her elder sister was Siobhain McDonagh, who was elected the Labour member of Parliament for Mitcham and Morden in 1997. She was considered to have badly mishandled the party's London mayoral candidate selection process, which resulted in Ken Livingstone winning 2000 mayoral election as an independent candidate, leaving the official Labour candidate, Frank Dobson, in third place, with subsequent disapproval amongst the party members. McDonagh later apologised for the mayoral electoral loss.

After stepping down from the position of General Secretary following the 2001 general election, McDonagh took a short Harvard University business course and became general manager of Express Newspapers. She was a non-executive director of Standard Life, TBI plc, and CareCapital Group plc. She was chair of the Standard Life Charitable Trust.

In 2013, McDonagh was appointed chair of the Smart Meter Central Delivery Body, which then became Smart Energy GB, an independent organisation that aims to inform consumers about smart meters and their national rollout across Great Britain.

Personal life McDonagh lived with her sister Siobhain in Colliers Wood, London, for most of their adult lives. She was diagnosed with glioblastoma in 2021.

She died on 24 June 2023, at age 61, and 19 years to the day after she was first appointed to the Lords. She was described as the "linchpin" of New Labour. Pat McFadden wrote that she was a "true working-class hero".

Legacy At Labour Party Conference 2023 it was announced that the Labour party would be launching the Margaret McDonagh Leadership Academy in her honour. David Evans, the General Secretary of the Labour Party, speaking at the launch of the Academy said it will "ensure that future generations will also know Margaret".