O'Reilly Foundation

The O'Reilly Foundation is a personal charitable trust set up by billionaire media magnate, and former CEO of Heinz, Sir Anthony "Tony" O'Reilly in 1998, which funds educational projects. The two main work areas of the trust are capital developments at Irish colleges and a long-running annual post-graduate scholarship programme for young people normally resident in Ireland.

Aims

O'Reilly established the Foundation as a charitable trust in 1998, with the aim of supporting charitable endeavours for the betterment of Ireland and to promote excellence, global vision, community responsibility and leadership.

Governance and staffing

Board of Trustees

General authority is vested in this board, including, from the beginning, O'Reilly's current wife as chairperson, plus his six children from his first marriage:

• Chryss Goulandris, Lady O'Reilly
• Susan Wildman
• Cameron O'Reilly
• Justine O'Reilly
• Gavin O'Reilly
• Caroline Dempsey
• Tony O'Reilly, Junior

Scholarship Board

Some operational responsibility, and the oversight of the postgraduate scholarship scheme, is vested in this group, first chaired by the architect of modern Irish economic policy, T. K. Whitaker, and subsequently by former Registrar of University College Dublin, Professor Emeritus John Kelly. The other members at this time, all long-serving, are:

• former Senator and Northern Ireland Ombudsman, Dr. Maurice Hayes
• former Secretary General to the Irish Government Frank Murray
• emeritus Fellow of Trinity College Dublin and former politician, Professor Martin O'Donoghue
• Fitzwilton and Waterford Wedgwood executive Kevin McGoran
• Professor John Hegarty, Consultant Physician / Gastroenterologist
• Solicitor, partner in leading Dublin law firm, Pauline O'Donovan

Staff

The Foundation has just one staff member, an Executive Secretary, a post held by Amanda Hopkins since establishment. Interviews for scholarships are conducted by academics, professionals and industry and public sector figures from the Scholarship Board. Finance and public relations are handled by companies working for parts of the O'Reilly family holdings, press releases, for example, issuing from Murray Consultants.

Capital projects

Among the capital projects funded (generally partly) by the Foundation have been:

• a major contribution in May 2000 to complete funding of the 50% privately-funded €22.2 million new library building for Dublin City University, later named "The John and Aileen O'Reilly Library" in honour of Dr. O'Reilly's parents.

Scholarship Programme

Sponsorship

The programme, which began in 1999, provides awards of around 25,400 euro annually. In most years, two Scholars are nominated, for two years each, but in some years, there are three Scholars, and in some years, there will be a Scholar with a one-year award. The award amount has been fixed since 1999, and is now worth under 50% of its original value (12,316 euro in 1999 terms, based on educational inflation in Ireland).

Most of the Scholarship Programme's communications are through its website, with the renewal of the Programme posted between May and August each year, promotional material circulated to colleges and the media in September and applications invited in November each year, with interviews and award decisions one to two months later.

The scholarships are said to be chiefly aimed at Ph.D. candidates but have in fact been awarded for a wide range of types of student. Certain disciplines are noted as preferences, namely Business Studies and Marketing, Science and Technology, Arts, Media Studies and Law. Of these, strategic business studies and law have recurred strongly among Scholars, along with some basic sciences, while, for example, Media Studies, despite Tony O'Reilly's media position, has never featured.

Scholars

The Foundation sponsors scholars who have an excellent academic record (First Class Honours - in the Irish / British systems -preferred) and who "have demonstrated leadership qualities", as well as the "potential and desire to make a significant contribution to the future of Ireland" - the latter has to be specified in some detail in applications.

Scholars are required to acknowledge the Foundation in publications and theses and to take part in activities to link themselves as a group, and Scholars, the Scholarship Board, Sir Anthony and Lady O'Reilly and others gather for a dinner at Castlemartin in December each year, where individual Scholars sometimes address the gathering about their plans and studies.

Past and present O'Reilly Foundation Scholars

Over the first ten years of the programme, there have been 24 awards made:

• Dr. Catherine O'Sullivan, 1st cycle, commencing studies 1999, Ph.D. in Geomechanics, University of California at Berkeley
• Ruth McGinley, 1st cycle, commencing 1999, Postgraduate Diploma in Performance (Music), Royal College of Music (London)
• Dr. Gavin Hurley, 2nd cycle, commencing 2000, Ph.D. in Operations Research, Cornell University
• Dr. Anita Sands, 2nd cycle, commencing 2000, Masters in Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University
• Dr. David Scannell, 3rd cycle, commencing 2001, Ph.D. in Law, Cambridge University
• Howard Reddy, 3rd cycle, commencing 2001, Masters of Music, Curtis Institute
• Bairbre O'Neill, 3rd cycle, commencing 2001, Master of Laws, Yale University
• Katherine Smyth, 4th cycle, commencing 2002, Master of Arts in Security Studies, Georgetown University
• Richard O'Brien, 4th cycle, commencing 2002, MBA, Cornell University
• Caitríona Boushel, 5th cycle, commencing 2003, Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering, University College Dublin
• James Ruane, 5th cycle, commencing 2003, Harvard
• Eoin Ó hÓgáin, 6th cycle, commencing 2004, Harvard
• Michael King, 6th cycle, commencing 2004, Masters in Public Administration in International Development, Harvard
• Julian Moore, 7th cycle, commencing 2005, Juris Doctorate, Columbia University
• Patrick Kehoe, 7th cycle, commencing 2005, MBA, Wharton
• Laura Bambrick, 8th cycle, commencing 2006, Masters and Ph.D. in Comparative Social Policy, Oxford University (St. Hilda's College)
• Francis Kieran, 8th cycle, commencing 2006, LLM, Harvard Law School
• David Murphy, 8th cycle, commencing 2006, Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, UCLA
• Rossa Fitzgerald, 9th cycle, commencing 2007, Masters in International Economics and Middle Eastern Studies, John Hopkins
• Paul Brady, 9th cycle, commencing 2007, LLM (Law), Harvard
• Brian Appelbe, 9th cycle, commencing 2007, Ph.D. in Nuclear Fusion, Imperial College London
• Rhona Gaynor, 10th cycle, commencing 2008, MPA in Public Policy and Management, London School of Economics
• Johnny Ryan, 10th cycle, commencing 2008, Ph.D. on the use of the Internet by terrorists, Cambridge University
• Caroline Martin, 10th cycle, commencing 2008, Ph.D. in Marine Geology, University College Galway and Woods Hole Institute

References

External links

The O'Reilly Foundation website (primarily on the Scholarship Programme)