The Life of Tony O'Reilly

Among rugby enthusiasts, he is still considered as probably the best player ever to come out of Ireland. In the business world, he was the youngest ever chief executive of a state corporation in Ireland, where he successfully launched Kerrygold butter, then rocketed to the top of H J Heinz in Pittsburgh. Now, at 57, Tony O'Reilly has amassed a fortune of $500 million and includes among his controlling interests a substantial chain of Australian newspapers, Waterford Wedgewood, Ireland's second biggest supermarket chain and the Irish Independent Newspapers Group. In this first biography of the multi-talented tycoon, Ivan Fallon leaves no stone unturned to present a fair, often surprising and always compelling portrait of one of Ireland's most powerful and charismatic men.