Tony O'Reilly biography
Tony O’Reilly, byname of Sir Anthony John Francis O’Reilly, (born May 7, 1936, Dublin, Ireland), Irish rugby union participant and enterprise govt who reached notable heights in each fields. He performed 29 Test (worldwide) matches for Ireland and set British Lions (now the British and Irish Lions) data for tries scored whereas on tour in South Africa (1955) and New Zealand (1959).
O’Reilly performed rugby for Old Belvedere and Leicester whereas a pupil and made his worldwide debut at age 18 as a centre in opposition to France in 1955. That similar yr he grew to become the youngest-ever participant chosen for the British Lions and performed on the wing at Ellis Park in Johannesburg in opposition to South Africa earlier than a then world-record crowd of 95,000, scoring a attempt in a well-known 23–22 Lions victory. He performed for the Lions once more throughout their 1959 tour of Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, scoring a report of twenty-two tries in each Test and non-Test matches on the tour that yr, breaking his personal report of 16, set in 1955. He additionally scored a report six tries in whole for the Lions in his 10 Test matches. He was recalled to the Irish staff to play in opposition to England in 1970 after a seven-year absence. He remained concerned in rugby as a member of the Irish Rugby Football Union’s Commercial Committee.
O’Reilly graduated from University College, Dublin, in 1958 and obtained a doctorate in agricultural advertising from the University of Bradford in England in 1980. During the Nineteen Sixties he headed the Irish Dairy Board, creating the internationally recognized model Kerrygold. In 1979 he grew to become president of the Heinz Corporation, and in 1987 he grew to become the primary nonfamily member to be chairman of Heinz.
At the flip of the twenty first century, O’Reilly was believed to be Ireland’s richest particular person, with an estimated private fortune of practically $2 billion. After leaving Heinz in 1998, he targeted on publishing by way of his chairmanship of Independent News and Media (INM), mother or father firm of many newspapers in Great Britain, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa. He was additionally chairman of Waterford Wedgwood, a producer of glass and china. O’Reilly’s investments in that firm, nonetheless, quickly contributed to rising monetary difficulties. Exacerbating the state of affairs was a failed energy wrestle to achieve management of INM, which led to his ouster in 2009. Six years later he was declared bankrupt by a Bahamian court docket.
Active in lots of cultural and charitable organizations, O’Reilly was chairman of the Ireland Funds, a worldwide community of individuals of Irish ancestry and others devoted to elevating funds to assist packages encouraging peace, reconciliation, and constructive change all through all of Ireland. He established the O’Reilly Foundation in 1998 so as to fund academic tasks in Ireland. He was knighted in 2001.