The sports presenter Bill O’Herlihy, who has died aged 76 of cancer, broadcast for more than 45 years with Raidió Teilifís Éireann. But though he was a highly respected figure, at times his career was touched with controversy.
In 1969, as a novice in current affairs programmes, he presented a documentary on illegal moneylending, using the then novel techniques of hidden cameras and microphones. However, at that time RTÉ was regarded as an arm of government, and the investigative programme was considered to be departing from the national interest. Consequently O’Herlihy (among others) was ousted from RTÉ’s current affairs division. O’Herlihy later said of the incident: “I was only a pawn, the subtext was all politics. It was a witch-hunt.”
He was rehabilitated as a sports presenter on the station and within a few years had become one of the best-loved faces on Irish television. As the anchor for football commentators he was a fair but firm chairman and decisive adjudicator. He attributed much of his success to his hard-nosed training in current affairs. O’Herlihy fronted 10 Olympics, 10 World Cups, the Rugby World Cup and many other world sporting events.
In 1973, parallel to his burgeoning television career, O’Herlihy set up his own public relations company, with myself as sidekick for a brief period. Although I was his junior by 10 years, I had considerable experience in the business, and he had none. His expertise was with an unseen public – his television audience. Mine was in the nitty-gritty of relations between our clients (such as Coca-Cola and Mercedes-Benz) and their consumers.
O’Herlihy’s success in PR depended on his persuasive public persona. His face opened doors to powerbrokers, decision-makers and opinion formers, and his family connections with the Fine Gael party led him to act as a voluntary media adviser to Garret FitzGerald when he was taoiseach in the 1980s.
In 2006, O’Herlihy gave evidence to a public inquiry that one of his clients, a property developer, had bribed public officials over a land issue. In his capacity as a sports presenter, he was criticised because his PR company liaised between the Irish tobacco industry and the government. O’Herlihy successfully refuted any suggestion of malpractice.
Bill was born in Cork to David, a hospital administrator, and his wife, Minnie. He left St Finbarr’s college, Farranferris, at the age of 16, and went to work on the local paper, the Cork Examiner. His grandfather had been its news editor, and Bill’s intention was to become its editor. But the lure of RTÉ television (still in its infancy in Ireland) was strong and at the age of 21 O’Herlihy found himself in Dublin as a reporter with RTÉ.
He detailed what followed in his autobiography, We’ll Leave It There So (2012). Its title was his characteristic way of wrapping up both television programmes and business meetings.
In 2013, he gave the address at the annual commemoration in Béal na Bláth, west Cork, of the killing of Michael Collins in 1922, during the Irish civil war. He took the opportunity to appeal for his own party, Fine Gael, to form a coalition with its civil-war antagonist, Fianna Fáil, saying it was time to reject the negative aspects of the past and to return to “the republic of equality and fair dealing, the republic that has no time for strokes [clever political moves], vested interests and political chicanery”. The suggestion, predictably, fell on stony ground. Nevertheless, the speech was widely regarded as a fitting closure to his own public career, and as a signal of the need to heal historical wounds.
He is survived by his wife Hillary (nee Pattison), and their daughters, Sally and Jill.
• Bill O’Herlihy, sports broadcaster, born 26 September 1938; died 25 May 2015
