‘Pope’s PR man’ Michael Dennehy passes away
Micheal Dennehy, who died on Wednesday after a relatively brief illness, had deep Kerry roots.
Michael maintained the PR business set up by his late father, Tim, in Dublin and ran it successfully for nearly 40 years after his father retired.
One colleague who remembers him with great affection remarked he was “the Pope’s PR man”.
That reference was a reminder that when Pope John Paul II visited Ireland in 1979, Michael took on the onerous task of setting up the huge public relations back-up operations in Dublin Castle to deal with that momentous event.
It was also a huge PR success and enhanced his reputation as a force within the PR industry in Ireland.
It was his long association with Waterford Wedgwood that probably meant most to him over the years and there was a sad irony in the fact that his illness was diagnosed shortly after the company went into decline late last year.
For years Michael was associated with the Rose of Tralee festival and he also did PR work for Irish Steel in Cork.
Michael was born in Dublin, but his heart was in Kerry, where both his parents were from.
