Obituary: Ted Crosbie, Cork's quintessential newspaperman

For three decades the dominant force in the Irish Examiner newspaper group, Ted Crosbie steered it through huge technical change

Ted Crosbie pictured at his home in 2018. He was the chief executive of the Examiner group from the early 1980's until 1993. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

Thomas Edward Crosbie, Cork’s quintessential newspaperman and the dominant force for more than three decades in the Irish Examiner group of newspapers, always had a way with words, once describing himself as: “a chemist by training, a shovel engineer by vocation, and a manager by desperation.” 

Such self-deprecation belied the skills of a man who steered the group through the most fundamental technical changes in how the paper was printed since its foundation in 1841.