Irish BBC Radio and TV broadcaster, and former Irish Times journalist, Henry Kelly has died aged 78.
Kelly shot to fame in the 1980s as presenter of BBC’s Going for Gold quizshow and ITV’s Game for a Laugh. However, his journalism career began two decades earlier when he started writing obituaries and theatre reviews for The Irish Times while studying for a degree in English at UCD.
The proudest period of his career were the years he spent reporting on the Northern Ireland Troubles for The Irish Times, his daughter Siobhán Kelly said.
Kelly was sent to Belfast on a week’s holiday cover in 1969 and ended up spending four years covering the Troubles as a reporter and editor, Ms Kelly told The Irish Times. “He always held The Irish Times very firmly in his heart and was very proud of the work he did in Northern Ireland and the time he spent there. I think probably looking back that was his proudest time.”
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Kelly was born in April 1946 in Athlone but moved to Dublin as a child to study at Belvedere College and UCD. He married his first wife Marjorie while working in Northern Ireland and Siobhán was born in Belfast. He later had a son Alex with his partner Karolyn.
Kelly left The Irish Times and joined the BBC in 1976, working as a reporter and presenter for Radio 4’s The World Tonight. “It was too good of an opportunity for him to refuse but he still always went back to Ireland whenever he could and did various pieces for The Irish Times,” said Siobhán. Kelly rose to fame in the 1980s as the frontman of ITV’s Game for a Laugh breakfast TV show and as the presenter of the lunchtime quizshow Going for Gold, which lasted 10 series until the mid-1990s.
“I think he probably thought he himself was mad, making that change from news to entertainment,” said Siobhán. “But it was an opportunity, something different and exciting, and he was still young enough to give it a go.” With only four TV channels across the UK, Kelly was quickly recognised everywhere he went. “It was a whirlwind, overnight he couldn’t go anywhere without people recognising him. Game for a Laugh would have 20 million people watching on a Saturday night. But it was always really positive, never a negative.”
Kelly often returned to Northern Ireland at the peak of his fame to do charity work “and be as supportive as he could” during the Troubles, said his daughter. “Other people would have been nervous about travelling to Northern Ireland then. But he was keen to do that whenever he could.
“Even with the success of Game for a Laugh and Going for Gold, he always considered himself a journalist. He was always a journalist at heart, that was always the defining part of his career.”
Kelly later went on to become one of the launch presenters of Classic FM and also hosted shows on LBC and BBC Radio London. However, he maintained a passion for and interest in current affairs until the end of his life. “Right till the very last minute, his mind was as sharp as anything, his fascination with current affairs never diminished,” said Siobhán. “We were talking about rugby and Ukraine last Sunday – he was thrilled to have seen Ireland win the Triple Crown on Saturday." He watched it with his son Alex.
Henry Kelly died on Tuesday, February 25th, after a period of ill health and is survived by his partner Karolyn Shindler, his son Alex, his daughter Siobhán and her mother Marjorie.
“He never left me in any doubt that I was loved and that I could achieve whatever I wanted,” Siobhán told The Irish Times. “I had his support for everything, it was the same for Alex.”
