My father, Arthur O’Neill, made a great contribution to the administration of athletics and hockey in Northern Ireland, touching many lives in the process.
Together with my mother, Hilary Hall, he founded two athletics clubs, Newtownabbey AC in 1971 and North Down AC in 1974, the latter of which is still going strong today. He was also a coach and athletics official for more than 30 years, as well as being treasurer of the Northern Ireland Women’s Athletics Association, of which Hilary was president.
In hockey he was a key figure in the emergence of the Belfast-based Pegasus club as one of Ireland’s most successful ladies’ teams. Hilary was a founding member in 1961 and Arthur trained the team in its first decade, umpired for more than 40 years, and provided vocal support from the sidelines well into his 80s.
Arthur was born in Belfast to Ina (nee Worrall) and her husband, Arthur, who was a baker. Arthur junior won a scholarship to the city’s Methodist College, where he excelled academically and also displayed a talent for middle-distance running, becoming All-Ireland U18 mile champion in 1949 and Northern Ireland senior champion in 1950.
He began work at the age of 18 as a clerk at the Headline shipping company in Belfast, and later developed his career as head of operations and then export director at Camco, for whom he once took a customer, George HW Bush, in his pre-presidency years, for nine holes of golf in the Northern Irish rain. He was 41 when he graduated from Queen’s University Belfast as a mature student in economics.
In the early 1980s he set up his own business, Greenart Shipping, which later merged with Campbell McCleave. This led into involvement as a board member with the Northern Ireland Small Business Institute (which became part of Ulster University Business School), where he mentored young entrepreneurs from across the province.
Arthur met Hilary (nee Hall), a lecturer at the Ulster College of Physical Education, in 1951 at a dinner dance, and they were married in 1959 – it was she who drew him into increasing involvement with the administration of sport.
In 1989 they were prime movers in bringing together the men’s and women’s athletics associations to form what is now Athletics Northern Ireland. Arthur was also a part-time ladies hockey correspondent for the Ireland Saturday Night newspaper and did much to raise the profile of women’s hockey across Ireland.
Hilary died in 1996. Arthur is survived his partner Brenda Kerr and the three children of his marriage, Katrina, Natalie and me.
