The late Dr Ian McDonald, AA, lived life to the fullest and his impact on the lives of the current and future generations will be through the rich legacy of his multi-disciplined and multi-faceted contributions to Guyana, the Caribbean, and the wider world in agriculture – particularly sugar – poetry and sport, said Major General (ret’d) Joseph Singh.
Delivering the eulogy at a memorial service yesterday, he emphasised McDonald describing himself as Antiguan by ancestry, Trinidadian by birth, Guyanese by adoption, and West Indian by conviction.
Those attributes reverberated among those, including President Irfaan Ali, who paid tribute to Mc Donald at the service to celebrate his life at Our Lady of Fatima Roman Catholic Church, Bourda on the 30th of September 2026.
McDonald died on the 24th of July 2026, in Canada and his ashes were recently returned to Guyana.
Bishop Francis Alleyne and Monsignor Terrence Montrose were the celebrants.
Also paying tributes were Vanda Radzik, Dr Steve Surujbally, McDonald’s grandson Jacob McDonald and son Jamie McDonald. Others were on the list to pay tributes, but the time ran out. Among those present was former President Donald Ramotar.
In his tribute President Ali assured McDonald’s wife Mary and other family members of the Government and People of Guyana’s gratitude for McDonald’s service and contribution nationally as well as regionally and internationally.
Born in St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago on the 18th of April 1933 and educated at Queen’s Royal College and Clare College, Cambridge University, 1951-1955, Ali said Guyana was more than McDonald’s home “To which he has given so much of his life.”
For his outstanding contribution in writing McDonald was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1970. He received the Golden Arrow of Achievement in 1986. In 1997, the University of the West Indies conferred on him an Honorary Doctorate of Letters for services to sugar, sport, and literature.
Ali said that one of the things that deeply affected McDonald was the attempt to distort the results of the 2020 general elections and this was reflected in one of his columns in the Stabroek News.
Remembering McDonald as “a good man, a brilliant son of the Caribbean, an erudite cultured man, a sporting icon, a man of the highest integrity, one who spoke and wrote for all of us, an exemplar whom our younger generations should seek to emulate, a loving family man, and a treasured friend”, Singh said he has known and interacted with him professionally and personally for over 40 years.
“Over the past twenty-five years, our conversations had become more regular and hardly a week had passed without us sharing phone calls, e-mails, and written notes or documents,” he said.
Noting the tributes that were paid via social media and other media, Singh quoted artist, sculptor, and poet Stanley Greaves as saying that McDonald’s contribution to the life and culture of Guyana is well known among his contemporaries but he may appear to be fatalistic by saying “the younger generation are unaware of his dedication to Guyana.”
Singh quoted Dr Komal Samaroo, Chairman of the Demerara Distillers Group of Companies, and the Institute of Private Enterprise Development saying that among McDonald’s “outstanding contributions” was the development of Guyana through his work with the sugar industry where he championed fair market access, with IPED where as a director for 35 years, he provided support to micro and small businesses, and in the literary world through his many publications.
He quoted Professor Clem Seecharan saying that Mc Donald was generous with his learning with the world. “He shared it in prose and poetry.” McDonald collaborated with Seecharan on ‘An Abounding Joy’, Hansib 2019, ‘Joe Solomon and Spirit of Port Mourant’, and the ‘Tied Test of December 1960’.
He also quoted Nisa Surujbally, an executive with McDonald at the Guyana Sugar Corporation as saying, “Vast as his achievements were, they paled in comparison to the character of the man himself. Ian was, above all, the absolute epitome of decency. He moved through life with humility and wisdom, leaving everyone he met feeling seen, valued and inspired.”
The Guyana Amateur Powerlifting Federation, Singh noted described McDonald as “a towering figure in Caribbean sport and literature and whose remarkable athletic and administrative contributions spanned tennis, squash, and cricket.”
Working life
Singh noted that McDonald joined Bookers in then British Guiana in 1955, and spent 52 years in the sugar industry. He was director of marketing and administration with Bookers. After the nationalisation of the sugar industry in 1976, he continued with GuySuCo, until 1999.
McDonald was an editorial consultant with the West Indian Commission that produced a seminal document titled: A Time for Action. The Commission was set up in the early 1990s by the Caribbean Community Heads of Government, which was chaired by Guyanese Sir Shridath Ramphal, to help the people of the West Indies prepare for the 21st century.
Between 2000 – 2007 McDonald was the chief executive officer of the Sugar Association of the Caribbean.
In January 2009 he was appointed Chairman of Guyana Publications Inc, publishers of the Stabroek News.
McDonald’s weekly column, ‘Ian on Sunday’ appeared in Stabroek News for nearly four decades.
Singh said McDonald enjoyed a lifelong friendship with the late founder of Stabroek News David de Caires, with whom he was involved in New World matters and had many talks about the founding of Stabroek News.
Singh was privileged, he said, to work pro bono with a small group that included de Caires, Egbert Carter and Mc Donald on the Restoration Project for the Theatre Guild Playhouse and Annex.
In 1981, McDonald was also a founding member of the Theatre Company and wrote the lyrics for the Theme Song of the Link Show, “When some ting wrang an yu kno, yu kno,
Stan Up! Stan Up! And say it is so”.
McDonald, Singh noted published thirteen poetry collections, his last is titled, ‘The Impossibility of Nothingness’, published in April 2026.
His prose collections of essays and speeches include: A Cloud of Witnesses, A Love of Poetry, People of Guyana – with Peter Jailall (Middle Road Publishers, 2018), An Abounding Joy, essays on sport, edited and annotated by Prof Clem Seecharan (Hansib, 2019), and Inheritance, The story of a West Indian family (Paria, 2020), which is about McDonald’s own family and which traces his ancestors.
Mary
Singh said that in 2021, when McDonald published ‘The Garden’, he sent him a copy and he replied, “Ian, The Garden is a wonderful acknowledgement of your deep love for Mary, and for your family, as reflected in the words of each poem and in the wonderful paintings of Gilly Gobinet and the beautiful photographs of Jamie.” Jamie is McDonald’s son.
McDonald had a deep interest in people’s welfare, Singh said and he noted that after reading Professor Clem Seecharan’s essay on the then chairman of Bookers Sir Jock Campbell, ‘Sweetening Bitter Sugar: Jock Campbell – the Booker Reformer in British Guiana, 1934-1966’, McDonald wrote that Campbell was easily the most charismatic person he had encountered in his life.
“Campbell told Ian of his shock at the terrible conditions he saw at first hand on his family sugar plantations and his determination to introduce root and branch reform as soon as he had the authority. Ian also wrote that what was being done by the reformer was captured in a phrase Jock Campbell used in all his key addresses: “People are more important than ships, shops and sugar estates.”
McDonald, he said, valued the importance of people such as Kenneth, the family’s gardener for 30 years and their handyman Morton, a former canecutter.
His poems, he said displayed a compassionate concern with the suffering of Guyana’s poor.
Family man
In his 85th year, McDonald wrote about the love of his parents for him and his siblings. He was the eldest.
At 87 he sent Singh an email in which he wrote an introduction to what he intended was a memoir of his life and which he titled ‘Inheritance’. The introduction, he said, gives a look at McDonald’s family and ancestors that included “war heroes, colourful revolutionary figures, genteel aunts, professionals covering a wide array of vocations” that ranged from medicine to sugar.
Having no memory of his maternal grandfather Leo Scheult who died when he was six years, McDonald wanted to live a long life so he could enjoy his grandchildren. He recounted to Singh his delight at his grandson Jacob questioning him as to whether shadows are real, what happened to yesterday, and whether the moon will go out, which prompted him to write the poem ‘The Truth About the Moon’.
McDonald and his sister Robin are credited with being the prime movers in compiling and editing Inheritance.
McDonald’s own poems, Singh said, was in his observation an ability to describe his emotions as it related to the love of his life, Mary, in her kitchen which “provided the ingredients for his poetry, as in his poem titled, ‘Mary’s garden’.”
Enamoured with Mary’s wonderful garden, Singh said, it is the subject of one of his books of poetry, ‘The Garden’ published in 2021.
Singh said his love for the Essequibo, a love which they both share, is found in his poem ‘Essequibo’.
“I shared with him the love and fascination with the mighty Essequibo, Guyana’s magnificent forests, spectacular landscapes and rich biodiversity, so whenever I fly over the hinterland, I can truly empathise with this extract from his brilliant poem in tribute to Chico Mendez, the murdered Brazilian Environmentalist.” McDonald wrote this poem at the time of the UN Conference on the Environment and Development in 1992 in Rio.
His only novel, ‘The hummingbird tree’, published in 1969, won the Winifred Holby Memorial Prize from the Royal Society of Literature for best regional novel, and was made into a BBC film in 1992.
He won the Guyana Prize for Literature for Poetry in 1992, 2004, 2012, 2024, and 2025.
He edited the journal Kyk-Over-Al from 1984 to 2000, and in 1997, he received the Medal of Service awarded to the journal on behalf of the editors and publishers of Kyk–Over–Al.
He assisted in the compilation and production of ‘Cricket at Bourda, celebrating the Georgetown Cricket Club, in time for the World Cup, March 2007.
A sportsman par excellence and sports administrator, McDonald played at Wimbledon, England in 1952, 1953, 1954 and 1959. He captained Cambridge University, Guyana’s, and the West Indies Davis Cup team in the 1960s. He was Guyana’s Sportsman of the Year in 1957.
In 2005, he delivered the Inaugural Lecture entitled ‘Cricket: A Hunger in the West Indian Soul’ in the Sir Frank Worrell lecture series.
McDonald was married to Mary Angela for 43 years. He was the father of son Keith from his first marriage, sons Jamie and Darren with Mary, father-in-law of Michelle, Angelina, and Mary, grandfather of Candace, Simon, Sean, Jacob, Zoey, Ben, and Darrian and great grandfather of Charlotte and Evelyn.
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