A co-director in the first years of the Belfast artist-run organisation Catalyst Arts in 1994, Dougal went on to become a Lecturer in Painting at Limerick School of Art and Design from 1997 to 2003. He returned to work in Belfast as a member of Queen Street Studios from 2004, and in 2005 was a recipient of an Arts Council of Northern Ireland Major Individual Award. In 2007 he curated The Double Image, one of the Golden Thread Gallery’s series of Collective Histories of Northern Irish Art exhibitions. He was Chair of the Board at Queen Street Studios/ QSS at Bedford Street from 2011 to 2014, helping in the organisation’s transition to new premises during this time. He continued to be a studio member at QSS Bedford Street, before moving to Orchid/ FlaxArt Studios in 2016 and then Paragon Studios in Belfast in 2018. Dougal exhibits nationally and internationally; most notably a prize winner at the Liverpool John Moores Contemporary Painting Exhibition in 2004, the John Moores Retrospective in Seongnam, South Korea in 2010, and an exhibitor again at the John Moores 2012 Prize. In 2014 he was one of two Northern Irish artists selected for the inaugural MAC International exhibition at the Metropolitan Arts Centre in Belfast, where he also held a major solo exhibition entitled A Dream and an Argument in 2017. He has been an external examiner to the BA Fine Art courses at Sligo Institute of Technology and IADT Dun Laoghaire, and was a co-director and director for six years on the BA (Hons) Fine Art course at Belfast School of Art. He has been a programming committee member at the F.E. McWilliam Gallery and Studio in Banbridge, Northern Ireland, and also a Board member at PSSquared Gallery and Studios in Belfast.  In 2023 he co-curated New Exits: Ten Years of Painting Shows at The MAC in Belfast, with Hugh Mulholland. In 2024 he was shortlisted for the Contemporary British Painting Prize in Cardiff, London and Sheffield. He is a Lecturer in Painting, and since 2023 has been the coordinator of the Freelands Foundation Studio Fellowship Studio. Dougal's research interests revolve around the relationships of contemporary painting practice to narrative theory, cinema and historiography. His pedagogical research is currently examining the impact of the Freelands Fellowship on teaching and learning in Fine Art/ Painting.