Paddy Galvin obituary: First Catholic managing director of Guinness Brewery

Engineer from humble Cork background who radically reformed Guinness and went on to take charge of Waterford Crystal

Mr Galvin was credited with transforming Waterford Crystal into a profitable company. Photograph: RIP.ie

Born: February 24th 1933

Died: August 30th 2022

Paddy Galvin, who has died aged 89, was a leading figure in Irish business. From humble origins in Cork, he rose to the Board of Guinness in Ireland, the first Catholic to do so, presiding over sweeping reforms that secured the company’s future, before moving to Waterford Crystal, which he helped turn from being a chronic loss-maker back into profitability.

A strong believer in the value of education, and in business mentoring and leadership, he played a significant role in the establishment, in 1985, of UCD’s University Industry Centre, the forerunner of today’s UCDNova, the college’s public-private partnership incubator for business innovators and entrepreneurs. His experience and insights were valued by colleagues and he served as president of the Federated Union of Employers (now IBEC) and also the Institute of Directors.

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Edward Patrick (Paddy) Galvin was born in February 1933, growing up in Croaghta Park, off Glasheen Road in the western part of Cork city. His parents were Patrick and Annie (nee Callanan) Galvin. Paddy’s father’s first wife Norah O’Connor died in 1915 leaving two sons, Dick and Raymond. His father later married Annie Callanan and they had six children, Jimmy, Maureen, Theresa, Shelia, Michael and Paddy (the youngest). Paddy was the only surviving member of the eight children.

In his senior years, he recalled how life in 1930s Cork had been tough. His father was a tailor and much of his work was in “turning suits” – that is, taking worn cloth and reversing it, thereby extending the life of the garment. Paddy Galvin’s youth was nonetheless a happy one, much of it spent with pals – swimming in the Lee, hunting with dogs for rabbits, and playing hurling at night. Schooling was with the Christian Brothers on Sullivan’s Quay, where he achieved a good Inter Cert (predecessor of the Junior Cert), leaving just before his 16th birthday to be an apprentice, working for the Engineering Services Limited.

During a five year, 47-hour working week apprenticeship, at night he went to the Crawford Technical Institute and all day on Fridays, and did a correspondence course, qualifying with the Institute of Engineers in London. His next job was with Dunlop, the tyre company, in Cork where he worked for 18 months in the drawing office and earned 17 and sixpence a week, which he gave to his mother, who returned three shillings to him.

In 1956, an ad in The Irish Times caught his eye. It was for a junior engineer at the Guinness brewery in Dublin. Aged 22, he applied and was interviewed by a panel that included the chief engineer and a member of the Board. At the time he was a teetotaller, knew nothing about Guinness and knew no one in Guinness, but was still offered and accepted a full-time position.

“I got the job and it all went on from there,” he told the Irish Life and Lore oral history archive in January 2020. Initially, he designed and maintained plant in the engineering department, which had some 800 workers out of a total workforce at the brewery of over 3,000. But he rose to become chief engineer (in 1972 and aged 39), dealing with numerous craft unions, one for each separate task within the department, including fitters, boilermakers, coopers and electricians.

‘God’s chosen people’

The Guinness chairman, Mark Hely-Hutchinson, tasked him with developing a Future Competitiveness Plan. Approving Galvin’s recommendations, Hely-Hutchinson then asked him to implement them. But introducing change was no easy task, as Galvin was to discover. “If you are dealing with 17 craft unions and the crafts people all think they are God’s chosen people and they are not going to bend, or not easily,” he told Irish Life and Lore. “We had our ups and downs. [Demarcation disputes] were constantly creating problems on the shop floor...

“My approach was, drop everything, go down into the workshop, find out who’s claiming elements of the work, debate it with them and tell them, firmly, I’m going to make a decision and the job must go on. I’d make a decision and would decide who had the rights for it and leave it to them. I didn’t take any nonsense.”

In 1972, he was appointed personnel director, and after studying executive management at the Harvard Business School he was then appointed managing director, the first Roman Catholic to hold either position or to sit on the company board, a fact that did not faze him.

“If you played a lot of hurling as a kid,” he said later, “you had to take the ball as it came and give it a good whack!” Galvin’s rise within the company coincided with the decision to rebuild the St James’s Gate Brewery at a time when brewing might otherwise have been moved elsewhere, possibly out of Ireland.

The resultant investment of some IR£140 million saw the workforce reduced from 2,200 to 1,400 but without any major work stoppage. The changes secured the primacy of St James’s Gate within the brewing empire, even as Guinness merged with over subsequent years into Grand Metropolitan and finally Diageo.

In 1989, after 33 years with Guinness, Galvin was appointed chief executive at the ailing Waterford Crystal. At the time, the company was reporting a loss of over IR£21 million on a turnover of IR£112 million. A Morgan Stanley/Fitzwilton (Tony O’Reilly) consortium named Shuttleway invested IR£80 million for a 29.2 per cent stake and Galvin set about implementing a cost-cutting package. However, this was rejected by the workforce and a 14-week strike ensued in 1990, during which senior management had to contend with hostility, inside and outside the company.

But two years later, and following further heavy losses, a cost-cutting and restructuring package was finally accepted. The company’s three crystal factories were rationalised and 1,800 workers lost their jobs.

As a result, the company edged back into profitability and by 1995 was reporting profits of IR£16 million on a turnover of IR£120 million. Galvin left Waterford Crystal soon after. Subsequent directorships included the Doyle Hotel Group and the Bank of Ireland. He also served as chairman of the National College of Ireland and chairman of UCD’s Industry Centre.

His reputation within the business community saw him address conferences regularly. His advice on managing change and culture within companies was valued and Bertie Ahern had him review Irish management training and development. In recognition of his contribution to Irish business over many decades Galvin was awarded numerous Honorary Fellowships and an Honorary Doctorate (LLD) from UCD in 1989.

Cork hurling

Galvin married his wife, Mary (nee Grant), in 1958. She, too, came from Cork. The couple settled in Dundrum, Co Dublin, where, from 1963, they lived and raised their children Imelda, Regina, Orla and Grant. Early family holidays were spent caravanning around Ireland, driving through France and Spain, and ultimately enjoying a holiday home in Wexford.

In his spare time he played golf, was a keen follower of Cork hurling and was known among friends for singing his party piece The Holy Ground at family events.

Paddy Galvin is survived by his children Imelda, Regina, Orla and Grant, by his grandchildren, Sarah, David, Nicola, Louise, Jennifer, Matthew, Alison, Kathryn, Emma and Oscar, and his great-granddaughter Saoirse.