Triumph and Disaster:
A Tribute To My Friend, Tony O’Reilly

Tony O’Reilly loved Pittsburgh. It became his home in 1971 and it was where he reached the pinnacle of U.S. business by serving as Chairman and CEO of the H.J. Heinz Company while serving on the boards of companies from Mobil Oil to the Washington Post.

It was where his six children were raised in the leafy suburbs of Fox Chapel, and where he made lasting friendships with people like Dan and Patricia Rooney, Moss and Carol Murphy, Mayor Tom Murphy, John and Candace Craig, Henry and Elsie Hillman, the Snyder family and so many others.

It was where Tony liked to organize fiercely competitive backyard football games where many a Heinz career was made or derailed.

“Pittsburgh,” he liked to say, “is big enough to be interesting and small enough to be intimate.” From Pittsburgh, where he was anchored by his longtime assistants Olive Deasy and Eileen Stevenson, Tony flew around the world motivating and inspiring Heinz managers.

Tony gave top managers wide autonomy while setting tough but fair goals. ”Tony is very competitive, and his scorecard is the bottom line,” said one senior Heinz colleague to the New York Times. “But he is also motivated by friendship. He’ll go that extra mile for people, so we’ll go that extra mile for him.” Tony used humor and charm to lighten up business meetings and to motivate managers. Like Noel Coward, he believed that work was much more fun than fun.

Mission of Peace

“Tony was a giant of sport, business, and media,” said the Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris when Tony died last week. He was also a giant in philanthropy supporting peace, culture, and charity in Ireland. Tony and Dan Rooney had the vision to realize that Irish Americans, very angry about the discriminatory attacks on Northern Ireland Catholics in the 1970s, needed an alternative way to help instead of funding the IRA. Together they created the American Ireland Fund to channel the extraordinary generosity and dedication of Irish Americans towards peace projects.

This forged a new era in Irish-American relations, changing as the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheal Martin said, “the global narrative on peace and reconciliation on this island.” Since 1976, the Ireland Fund has raised $600 million for peace in Ireland and is still generously supported by the Rooney family.

In those early years, the leading Irish peacemaker John Hume and Irish Government Ministers began to speak at Ireland Fund dinners around the U.S., where they were joined by Irish American politicians like Speaker Tip O’Neill, Senator Kennedy, and Presidents Bush and Clinton, as well as celebrities like Liam Neeson, Sean Connery, and Paul Newman.

And then there’s the story Tony related of the legendary Monsignor James Horan, who dedicated himself to making the Shrine of Our Lady of Knock an international pilgrimage destination. He once approached Tony with an unbeatable pitch to help build Knock airport: “I had a vision of the Lord last night,” the priest said, “and he told me that Tony would pay for the runway lights.” The Lord was right.

But his humanitarian interests extended beyond his home island. In 1991, Tony invited Nelson Mandela to address the Heinz distinguished lecture at the University of Pittsburgh where Mr. Mandela announced that sanctions against South Africa could be lifted as apartheid came to an end. Addressing the audience, Mandela greeted O’Reilly as “Rooikop Tony,” or Red Tony, the nickname Tony had earned during his Hall of Fame rugby career decades earlier.

Running the Race

When Tony retired from Heinz and went back to Ireland, I stayed in the United States where my wife and family had put down roots.

The subsequent story is by now well-known: how the digital revolution destroyed the profits of Tony’s global newspaper empire, a fate tragically shared by other newspapers. But it was his attempt to save the luxury goods company Waterford Glass rather than offshore it to Asia that dealt Tony the final financial blow.

His legal and financial issues became fodder for the very newspapers he once owned. But Tony and his late wife, Chryss, faced that crisis with characteristic fortitude, recalling the Kipling advice to treat the two imposters of triumph and disaster just the same.

I can still hear him say when we faced major crises at Heinz, “Ted, the wind and rain are in our face, we are 10 points down with minutes to go, let’s go win this game!”

Farewell Tony, you won the game, and we will miss you. Rest in peace. ♦

Note: Sir Anthony “Tony” O’Reilly, passed away at the age of 88, in Dublin, Ireland, after a brief illness, on Saturday, May 18, 2024.

Ted Smyth is the Chair of the Clinton Institute for American Studies at University College Dublin, and President of the Advisory Board of Glucksman Ireland House NYU. Formerly, he was a diplomat for the Republic of Ireland and Chief Administrative Officer for the H.J. Heinz Company.