Tom Kelly, OBE, DL, is an Irish and UK media commentator, businessman and former vice chairman of the Social Democratic and Labour Party in Northern Ireland. [1] The grandson of the IRA War of Independence veteran and Irish Labour activist Tom Kelly, he attended the Abbey Grammar School in Newry followed by the University of Ulster.
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established on 4 June 1917 by King George V and comprises five classes across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two of which make the recipient either a knight if male or dame if female. There is also the related British Empire Medal, whose recipients are affiliated with, but not members of the order.
The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) is a social-democratic, Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. The SDLP currently has 11 MLAs in the Northern Ireland Assembly. It has no elected representatives in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom having lost its three remaining Parliamentary seats in the 2017 general election.
Northern Ireland is variously described as a country, province or region which is part of the United Kingdom. Located in the northeast of the island of Ireland, Northern Ireland shares a border to the south and west with the Republic of Ireland. In 2011, its population was 1,810,863, constituting about 30% of the island's total population and about 3% of the UK's population. Established by the Northern Ireland Act 1998 as part of the Good Friday Agreement, the Northern Ireland Assembly holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters, while other areas are reserved for the British government. Northern Ireland co-operates with the Republic of Ireland in several areas, and the Agreement granted the Republic the ability to "put forward views and proposals" with "determined efforts to resolve disagreements between the two governments".
He was political assistant to the former Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland and MP for Newry and Armagh, Seamus Mallon. With the backing of the United States-based National Democratic Institute for International Affairs Kelly set up the Social Democratic Group on behalf of the SDLP. Kelly was the communications director in many of the key SDLP electoral campaigns until 2001. In 1994 he moved into public relations fronting a Belfast office for Dublin-based PR company Drury Communications. He subsequently bought that company out and renamed it Stakeholder Communications. In 2001 he was appointed by the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to serve on the first Northern Ireland Policing Board. In 2002 he won the prestigious PRCA Award for the best corporate communications campaign. [2] Kelly was heavily involved in the credit union movement of Ireland. He served as chairman of Newry Credit Union Ltd and drove the media aspect of an all Ireland campaign for a taxation exemption for credit union members. He was the first chairman of Newry City Centre Management Partnership having jointly led the campaign for city status for Newry and Mourne District Council and Newry Chamber of Commerce in 2002. Kelly was also a former chairman of the County Down club - Cumann Naomh Eoin Bosco GFC from 1991 to 1995.
Newry and Armagh is a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons.
Seamus Frederick Mallon is an Irish former Gaelic footballer and politician who served as deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland from 1998 to 2001 and Deputy Leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party from 1979 to 2001.
Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, informally known as the Northern Ireland Secretary, is the principal secretary of state in Her Majesty's Government with responsibilities for Northern Ireland. The Secretary of State is a Minister of the Crown who is accountable to the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is the chief minister in the Northern Ireland Office. As with other ministers, the position is appointed by the British monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister.
He is a regular media contributor to political and current affairs programmes on the BBC and has a popular weekly column in the leading morning nationalist paper in Northern Ireland, the Irish News . [3] Kelly is a visiting professor at the University of Ulster's School of Communication. In 2005 he was named as one of the top 50 most influential Irishmen in Great Britain by a leading Irish Sunday newspaper. In 2006 he accepted an OBE. [4]
Irish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which asserts that the Irish people are a nation and espouses the creation of a sovereign Irish nation-state on the island of Ireland. Irish nationalism celebrates the culture of Ireland, especially the Irish language, literature, music, and sports. It grew more potent during the period in which all of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom, which led to most of the island seceding from the UK in 1921.
In 2011 Kelly was appointed chairman of Square Up Media in London. He serves as an honorary consul for Malta. In February 2012 the University of Ulster announced the awarding of an honorary doctorate to Kelly for his contribution to the community.
Malta, officially known as the Republic of Malta, is a Southern European island country consisting of an archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. It lies 80 km (50 mi) south of Italy, 284 km (176 mi) east of Tunisia, and 333 km (207 mi) north of Libya. With a population of about 475,000 over an area of 316 km2 (122 sq mi), Malta is the world's tenth smallest and fifth most densely populated sovereign country. Its capital is Valletta, which is the smallest national capital in the European Union by area at 0.8 km². The official languages are Maltese and English, with Maltese officially recognised as the national language and the only Semitic language in the European Union.
