Life Stories
Sir Anthony O’Reilly
Sir Anthony (Tony) O’Reilly (Honorary Fellow) died on 18 May 2024 aged 88.
Tony O’Reilly (centre) at the opening of the Sloane Robinson building, including the O’Reilly Theatre, in 2002. Pictured with Tim Faithfull (left) and Sir Larry Siedentop (right). Photo credit Bernard Crapper.
Tony O’Reilly was the original Celtic Tiger before the term came to be applied to his native Ireland. He excelled in sport where his achievements on the rugby field are still unrivalled (38 tries in 38 games for the British and Irish Lions), in business as chairman of Heinz, at one stage the highest paid executive in the US, and as a media mogul owning more than 200 newspapers round the world.
Educated by the Jesuits in Dublin, his schoolwork was never allowed to distract him from the sports field where he excelled in soccer, cricket and tennis as well as rugby. Selected for Ireland and the Lions when only 18, he quickly became a star performer on the wing with a series of spectacular tries.
In the early 1960s, he became head of the Irish Dairy Board where he invented the Kerrygold brand, despite – as he was happy to confess privately – the fact that there were hardly any dairy cows in Kerry. It was, he later claimed, the proudest achievement of his business career. But his business career had far to go. After declining an invitation to become Irish Minister of Agriculture, he joined Heinz, transferring to its headquarters in Pittsburgh where he rose to become chief executive by 1979 and in 1987 became the first chairman of the company not to be a member of the Heinz family. During his time at the helm, the company’s value increased tenfold and he grew rich on the share options.
In 1976, he established the Ireland Funds, a charity which finances self-help projects north and south of the border to promote ‘peaceful and fruitful co-existence’. It was perhaps his greatest legacy raising many millions of dollars from US donors into reconciliation projects and successfully blunting the IRA’s fundraising in the US. To date over $650 million has been raised. He was appropriately awarded a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth in 2001 for his ‘long and distinguished service to Northern Ireland’.
His time at Heinz was clearly intense but still allowed him to pursue other fields. He bought into the newspaper business in 1973, becoming Ireland’s leading press baron and expanding his publishing interests to some 200 newspapers in Australia, South Africa and the UK where he bought into The Independent in 1994 and took full ownership in 1998.
Through his interest in (now Saint) John Henry Newman, who had founded University College Dublin where he studied, O’Reilly came to visit Keble where, inspired by John Keble’s relationship with Newman in the Oxford Movement, he donated the funds for the building of the eponymous O’Reilly Theatre.
He took control of the Waterford Wedgwood group (WW) in the 1990s but, while initially raising its marketing profile, by the 2000s globalization and foreign competition forced it into receivership in 2009. O’Reilly lost €400 million of family money in a vain attempt to keep WW afloat. At the same time, his Independent News and Media Group where he was chief executive became heavily indebted as the 2008 financial crash took hold. His position was undermined by another Irish billionaire, Denis O’Brien, who steadily built up a stake in the newspaper group to the point of takeover. O’Reilly was ousted and in substantial personal debt was declared bankrupt in 2015.
His sad downfall should not be allowed to detract from a charismatic and iconic figure whose easy charm was matched by his generosity and philanthropy. He was a compelling raconteur, a spectacular host, welcoming and gracious, brilliantly supported by his second wife Chryss Goulandris, the epitome of elegance. By his first wife, Susan Cameron, an Australian pianist he met on a Lions rugby tour, he had six children who all survive him.
Kindly provided by Sir Ivor Roberts (1964).