Colm Barnes, who has died aged 84, was for many years chairman of the textile company Glen Abbey and served on a number of semi-State bodies, including Córas Tráchtála, the Irish export board.
He also played a key role in the establishment of management as a discipline to be taught at third level in Ireland.
He was born Columcille Barnes on July 13th, 1919, at 258 Falls Road, Belfast, one of the 11 children of Jeremiah Barnes and his wife, Mary Frances (née McGinley). His father was a credit draper - a "tick man" - and was also involved in the retail trade; strongly nationalist, he served as a Belfast city councillor. Because of the political situation in Northern Ireland, the family moved to Dublin in 1922. All the children were educated through Irish, and Colm was sent to Louise Gavan Duffy's Scoil Bhríde and later to the Christian Brothers at Coláiste Mhuire.
He entered business as a management trainee with the family firm, Sioda Teoranta. In 1939 he and his brother, Rory, established Glen Abbey Ltd. The company prospered and grew from five employees at the beginning to 1,100 at its peak in the 1970s when it was one of Ireland's leading manufacturing firms. His day-to-day involvement with Glen Abbey continued until 1984 when he retired from the board.
He was appointed chairman of Córas Tráchtála in 1967 and served in this capacity for nine years. He precipitated a minor public controversy in 1973 when he urged executives in Irish industry to call it a day on reaching 55 years of age so that well-trained and committed young people could take the helm.
Membership of the European Economic Community meant that "a fresh, creative approach to devise the strategies required in product and marketing policies" was needed. The strategies employed in the sheltered conditions of protectionism would no longer suffice.
An Irish Times leader writer gently rapped his knuckles: "Mr Barnes is a successful and humane fellow. This generalising doesn't sound like him at all. It sounds like some hungry young executive."
In March 1976 he criticised the Fine Gael-Labour Party government's attitude to business. Entrepreneurs saw the political climate as "hostile to business", he said, and had turned their attention to investing in other countries where they were more appreciated.
The industrial sector, he claimed, had been subjected to a battering of the most damaging kind. It was time for the government to demonstrate political conviction and integrate the economic strategies that would once again make Ireland a land of opportunity. The creation of jobs, he asserted, was the "most important socio-economic challenge" facing the country. It was necessary to examine areas of the economy that had the potential to substantially increase employment.
In the 1950s he was one of a group of people from the public and private sectors who met regularly to compare notes and discuss the further development of business and education in Ireland.
Out of these meetings grew the Irish Management Institute with which he continued to be closely involved. He was awarded a life fellowship of the IMI in 1973.
Elected president of the Confederation of Irish Industry in 1960, he served as chairman of the board of the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards (1960-66) and was a director of Gaeltarra Éireann, Roadstone Ltd, the Northern Bank and Fiat Auto. A patron of the Glencree Centre for Reconciliation, he continued the family tradition of constitutional nationalism through his staunch support for the SDLP.
His role in promoting Irish-Italian trade was recognised in 1976 when he was made Knight Officer of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Italy. Recreations included golf, gardening and fishing. He was associated with the Irish School of Ecumenics and the Samaritans. Late in life he discovered the delights of the annual Merriman Summer Schools.
In 1940 he married Beatrice Behan, who predeceased him in 1989; he subsequently married Pat Thompson who, with his daughters, Maureen and Beatrice, survives him.
- Colm Barnes: born, July 13th, 1919; died, October 3rd, 2003