Kevin McCourt (1915–2000) was an Irish businessman and
Director-General of RTÉ
The Director-General is chief executive and editor-in-chief of public service broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ). The current director-general is Dee Forbes, who replaced Noel Curran in the role in 2016.
Appointment and role
The RT ...
between 1962 and 1968. He also served as Managing Director of
Irish Distillers
Irish Distillers is a subsidiary of the French drinks conglomerate Pernod Ricard. It is the largest distiller of Irish whiskey, distilling popular brands such as Jameson and Powers, in addition to premium whiskeys such as Redbreast and Midleton ...
and the Dutch firm
Hunter Douglas
Hunter Douglas N.V. is a Dutch multinational corporation. Its principal business is making window blinds and coverings. The company is publicly listed.
The head office is in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and a management office in Lucerne, Swit ...
.
Early life and education
He was born 14 April 1915 in
Tralee
Tralee ( ; ga, Trá Lí, ; formerly , meaning 'strand of the Lee River') is the county town of County Kerry in the south-west of Ireland. The town is on the northern side of the neck of the Dingle Peninsula, and is the largest town in County ...
,
County Kerry
County Kerry ( gle, Contae Chiarraí) is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and forms part of the province of Munster. It is named after the Ciarraige who lived in part of the present county. The population of the co ...
, second son among three sons and one daughter of John McCourt, originally of
Banbridge
Banbridge ( , ) is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies on the River Bann and the A1 road (Northern Ireland), A1 road and is named after a bridge built over the River Bann in 1712. It is situated in the Civil parishes in Ireland, c ...
,
County Down
County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 531,665. It borders County Antrim to the ...
, clerk with the congested districts board at Tralee, and later a distributor with Argosy Libraries, and Mary Christina McCourt (née Small) of Co. Down. He was educated at the Christian Brothers in
Dún Laoghaire
Dún Laoghaire ( , ) is a suburban coastal town in Dublin in Ireland. It is the administrative centre of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown.
The town was built following the 1816 legislation that allowed the building of a major port to serve Dubli ...
, Co. Dublin, and
Blackrock College
Blackrock College ( ga, Coláiste na Carraige Duibhe) is a voluntary secondary school, voluntary day school, day and boarding school, boarding Catholicism, Catholic secondary school for boys aged 13–18, in Williamstown, Blackrock, Dublin, Bl ...
. He left school at 16 he joined the Dublin United Tramway Company as a clerk (1933–7), during which time he continued his education part-time at the Rathmines College of Commerce
Dublin Institute of Technology
Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT, ga, Institiúid Teicneolaíochta Bhaile Átha Cliath) was a major third-level institution in Dublin, Ireland. On 1 January 2019 DIT was dissolved and its functions were transferred to the Technological Un ...
. On qualifying as both a chartered secretary and a certified accountant he became client company secretary (1937–40) with Kennedy, Crowley & Co., chartered accountants, later becoming secretary and accountant (1940–44) to McAuley & Co., wool merchants.
Businessman
In 1944 he became secretary (1944–9) to the Federation of Irish Manufacturers (FIM) (subsequently the Federation of Irish Industry and then the Confederation of Irish Industry) where he helped to create the public relations committee (1945) and came into close contact with the Minister of Industry and Commerce, Seán Lemass. In 1949 McCourt was appointed a director (1949–51) and founder member of the
Industrial Development Authority
Industrial Development Agency (IDA Ireland) ( ga, An Ghníomhaireacht Forbartha Tionscail) is the agency responsible for the attraction and retention of inward foreign direct investment (FDI) into Ireland. The agency was founded in 1949 as the I ...
(IDA) by Lemass's successor,
Daniel Morrissey
Daniel Morrissey (28 November 1895 – 4 November 1981) was an Irish Fine Gael politician who served as Minister for Justice from March 1951 to June 1951, Minister for Industry and Commerce from 1948 to 1951 and Leas-Cheann Comhairle of Dáil ...
. After his brief tenure with the IDA he worked for seven years as executive director (1951–8) with P. J. Carroll, tobacco manufacturers, where he learned the problems of production. He helped to modernise the firm's antiquated manufacturing processes and brought Don Carroll into the company. He attempted to persuade the family run company to be more brand aware and to spend more money on advertising. Between 1958-1963 he worked in the Netherlands with international aluminium manufacturers
Hunter Douglas
Hunter Douglas N.V. is a Dutch multinational corporation. Its principal business is making window blinds and coverings. The company is publicly listed.
The head office is in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and a management office in Lucerne, Swit ...
NV as joint managing director.
Director General of RTÉ
Seán Lemass
Seán Francis Lemass (born John Francis Lemass; 15 July 1899 – 11 May 1971) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who served as Taoiseach and Leader of Fianna Fáil from 1959 to 1966. He also served as Tánaiste from 1957 to 1959, 1951 to 1954 ...
, then
Taoiseach
The Taoiseach is the head of government, or prime minister, of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The office is appointed by the president of Ireland upon the nomination of Dáil Éireann (the lower house of the Oireachtas, Ireland's national legisl ...
, asked him to return to Ireland to become the second director general of RTÉ. Despite a significant drop in remuneration he took up the post on 1 January 1963. The time was a controversial one with attempts at interference from Archbishop
John Charles McQuaid
John Charles McQuaid, C.S.Sp. (28 July 1895 – 7 April 1973), was the Catholic Primate of Ireland and Archbishop of Dublin between December 1940 and January 1972. He was known for the unusual amount of influence he had over successive governme ...
and the views of Lemass, who believed it should be ''"an instrument of public policy"'', he insisted that RTÉ remain independent of both church and state.
Shows such as ''
The Late Late Show'' prospered during this time and had a profound influence on Irish life.
Under McCourt the organization developed and covered several notable events in Ireland including
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
's visit to Ireland in 1963,
Roger Casement
Roger David Casement ( ga, Ruairí Dáithí Mac Easmainn; 1 September 1864 – 3 August 1916), known as Sir Roger Casement, CMG, between 1911 and 1916, was a diplomat and Irish nationalist executed by the United Kingdom for treason during Worl ...
's funeral in 1965 and the 50th anniversary of the
Easter Rising
The Easter Rising ( ga, Éirí Amach na Cásca), also known as the Easter Rebellion, was an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter Week in April 1916. The Rising was launched by Irish republicans against British rule in Ireland with the a ...
in 1966. His tenure always caused unrest within sections of the organisation when in 1968 he decided to integrate the
7 Days Seven Days or 7 Days may refer to:
* Week, an amount of time
Film
* ''7 Days'' (2010 film) (''Les 7 jours du talion''), Canadian thriller film
* ''7 Days'' (2021 film), American romantic comedy film
* ''Seven Days'' (1925 film), American silent ...
programme within the RTÉ News division.
Later career
He stepped down from RTÉ in 1968 and became managing director of the United Distillers of Ireland Ltd. (later
Irish Distillers
Irish Distillers is a subsidiary of the French drinks conglomerate Pernod Ricard. It is the largest distiller of Irish whiskey, distilling popular brands such as Jameson and Powers, in addition to premium whiskeys such as Redbreast and Midleton ...
). Throughout his ten years with the group he spearheaded the integration of a company that had been created from an amalgamation of three competing distilleries and oversaw the modernisation and rationalisation of the firm by moving all whiskey production to a single site in Midleton, Co. Cork. He was also instrumental in the purchase of Bushmills Distillery and responsible for creating a partnership with the Canadian firm Seagrams, who purchased 20% of United Distillers. In 1972 he agreed to write a series of articles for the ''
Sunday Independent'', which embroiled him in a controversy between the newspaper and the National Union of Journalists. The NUJ objected to his writing the articles on the basis that it was a threat to the employment of their members. The dispute caused the non-publication of one issue of the Sunday Independent, after which he ended the dispute by withdrawing the articles.
During an all-out strike at Irish Distillers Group in 1974, McCourt focused on trade unions saying; ''"Our country is involved in a war, a war that threatens the development we all legitimately seek . . . We can go a long way towards winning our share in Ireland of this particular war by putting in more than we try to take out, by some reduction in self-interest in favour of the national well-being."''
By the time he retired from United Distillers the company's profits had risen from £500,000 to £3,500,000. After his retirement he remained on the board until 1983.
He was also director (1965–9) and chairman (1969–73) of Gorta, the famine relief agency, and chairman of
Irish Steel
Irish Steel Limited ( ga, Cruach na hÉireann Teoranta), later known as Irish Ispat Limited, was an State-sponsored bodies of the Republic of Ireland, Irish semi-state company which was involved in steelmaking, steel production primarily from a ...
(1975–86); Alexander Stenhouse (Ireland) Ltd (1980–87); Algemene Bank Nederland (Ireland) Ltd (1980–85); Irish Agricultural Machinery (1982–8); and Hibernian Life Assurance Ltd (1987–9). He held a number of other directorships in Foir Teoranta (1972–9), Jefferson Smurfit Group (1979–89) and Peterson Tennant Group Ltd (1979–82). Even in later life he remained involved in business becoming director of
Fran Rooney's Baltimore Technologies. He was a benefactor of
University College Dublin
University College Dublin (commonly referred to as UCD) ( ga, Coláiste na hOllscoile, Baile Átha Cliath) is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a collegiate university, member institution of the National University of Ireland ...
's
Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School
The UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School is the graduate business school of University College Dublin (UCD) and is located in Blackrock, Dublin, Ireland, on the site of the former teacher-training Carysfort College. Undergraduate bus ...
with the ''McCourt University Challenge'' named after him from 2004.
He died 13 May 2000 in Dublin.
Personal life
He married (1940) Margaret (‘Peggy’) McMahon of Dublin, daughter of John McMahon, barrister. In 2009, Eugene McCague published a biography of McCourt entitled ''My Dear Mr McCourt''.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mccourt, Kevin
Directors-General of RTÉ
Alumni of Dublin Institute of Technology
1915 births
2000 deaths
People educated at Blackrock College