John Kelly, born in Newry on May 11th, 1935, was a man of immense vision, creativity, and compassion. He led and inspired those around him, was much loved, and will be deeply missed by family and friends.
The middle child of seven, he was raised in a loving home on Newry’s Dublin Road by his parents JV and Rita. It was a happy childhood, with much of his time spent outdoors around Carlingford Lough, swimming in the sea and climbing the surrounding hills. Following a primary education with the local Christian Brothers, he was enrolled in Castleknock College in Dublin, where he boarded for six years, becoming head prefect in his final year.
On leaving Castleknock, he embarked on a degree within the newly emerging field of chemical engineering in UCD, from which he graduated in 1957. He greatly enjoyed college life, and loved the life that engineering opened up for him. He worked in the private sector in England and Cork, before returning to UCD in 1963, to take up a lecturing position.
John played senior rugby with Highfield, and captained the Irish water-skiing team. He also developed interests which would stay with him for life – he learned to play tennis and golf, and to sail, a skill he would enjoy with his family on his Galway Hooker during regular summers spent in Connemara.
It was also in the late 1960s that he met Nora Doyle, the love of his life, whom he married in 1968. Shortly after completing his PhD, he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship, travelling to University of Maryland with Nora, where he took up the role of visiting Fulbright professor. It was a tumultuous time to be teaching in a US university, rife with civil rights and anti-war demonstrations. The experience transformed his professional and political outlook. Research certainly interested him, but he could clearly see how academia could provide a pathway to contribute to public life, to address injustice and inequality.
With the outbreak of the Troubles in the north of Ireland, inspired by John Hume, John quickly became involved in the newly emerging SDLP. Throughout the 1970s and 80s he coordinated large-scale fundraising events in Dublin, raising tens of thousands of pounds to support the political vision of John Hume, Seamus Mallon and Austin Currie.
John was promoted to senior lecturer in 1976 and appointed dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture in 1979, a position he held until his appointment as registrar and deputy president of UCD in 1986. John served as a member of the governing bodies of UCD and DCU, and was elected by the governing body of UCD to the Senate of the National University of Ireland in 1982. On completion of his term as registrar in 1994, he was appointed professor of chemical engineering.
He held a deep belief that third-level education should be available to all, and this guided many initiatives he developed through his career. His efforts to promote gender balance in the engineering faculty resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of women enrolling to study engineering in the late 1980s. As registrar, he was struck by the great injustice faced by people with disabilities who were seeking university education. In 1988, he founded Ahead, an organisation whose mission it was to address this injustice. In recognition of his role, Ahead launched the John Kelly Award for Universal Design in Further and Higher Education in 2019.
John’s particular gift for connecting people and places led to long-lasting university links worldwide. He was visiting professor at the University of Missouri-Rolla in 1982, and founding executive director of the Ireland Canada University Foundation, established in 1993. After decades of work supporting the development of university education in the Middle East, and particularly in Palestine, he was deeply honoured to be awarded an honorary doctorate in 2012 by the University of Bethlehem, a place close to his heart.
Instead of putting his feet up in his mid-80s, John continued to be an active member of Fitzwilliam Tennis Club and embarked on a new writing project documenting James Joyce’s time as a student in UCD. Completed during the Covid lockdown, Joyce the Student was launched by the president of UCD in Newman House on Bloomsday, in June 2021.
John died peacefully on November 12th, 2022, at the age of 87, and is survived by his wife Nora, his four children, James, Mary Louise (Merlo), Michael and Johnny, six grandchildren and his brother and sister.