Kenneth (Ken) Reid, who died on April 30th aged 70, will be widely remembered as one of Ireland's most renowned and innovative sports administrators, especially in connection with rugby, but his life's work as an outstanding teacher and educationalist is worthy of equal recognition.
As a role model for the new Irelanders, he will also remain a significant figure. Unlike many sports, rugby rapidly came to terms with partition in the early 1920s, and despite the turbulence of the modern Troubles, officials and players refused to break the all-Ireland mode in which their sport was administered and played.
Ken Reid's was a highly influential role in preserving this position through many difficulties and, like many Ulster Protestants, he was prepared to stand for the Irish National Anthem at Lansdowne Road and elsewhere on national rugby occasions. By sweeping away dissent and division in favour of tolerance and diversity, Ken Reid and his rugby contemporaries, can be said to have laid the yardstick for the surging levels of new-Ireland co-operation now taking place in the wider political, economic and social contexts and to have set an example of coexistence for future generations.
The crowning achievement of his life in rugby came in 1999 when, against all the odds, Ulster won the European Cup, the prize in the now well-established competition, which owed its existence in no small measure to Ken Reid's pivotal role in overcoming scepticism and opposition to the ground-breaking project and doing much of the original organisational spadework to make it happen.
Together with Tom Kiernan and the late Sir Ewart Bell, he was also a central figure in the process of transforming Irish rugby from its ambiguous amateur status into the professional game that is now thriving throughout Ireland.
But away from the mud and muscle of competitive rugby, Ken Reid was an equally dynamic influence in his profession as a teacher. The heyday of his educational career was his term as headmaster of Grosvenor High School in Belfast. When he went there in 1973, it was in many respects a disadvantaged school. Set in a tough, working-class area of east Belfast, where paramilitary influence and social deprivation were thick in the air, Ken Reid used his commanding stature, booming voice and natural authority to good effect in creating a culture of achievement in the school. Although they remember being scared stiff of his demanding ways, there are many past pupils who now owe successful lifestyles in many spheres to him and pay tribute to his inspirational teaching and leadership.
Kenneth Ernest Reid was born at Creggan, Derry, on February 23rd, 1931, the son of an officer in the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Thanks to his father's peripatetic life in the RUC, he was educated at Down High School, Downpatrick, and then Methodist College, Belfast, from where he went to Trinity College, Dublin, graduating with a degree in history and political science in 1953. After a spell teaching at Wesley College in Dublin, he returned to a post at his old school, Methody.
Subsequent career moves took him to Lurgan College as head of history, Dundonald Girls' High School as headmaster and then Grosvenor High School in the same position, where he remained for 21 years until his retirement in 1994.
His parallel rugby career began at Methody and continued at Trinity and Old Wesley, where he played for all three institutions. When his playing days were over he turned to coaching and soon advanced from club and school level to working with the provincial and nationals teams. He also began to devote his considerable skill and energy to the administrative side of the game, serving as president and then secretary of the Ulster Branch of the Irish Rugby Football Union.
From being an Irish selector, he emerged as manager and guided Ireland through a series of international tours and the Rugby World Cup in 1991. From 1983 to 1996 he served as a committee member of the IRFU, including a term as president in 1994-95.
At the same time he was heavily involved in helping general sports development in Northern Ireland. He was a member of the Sports Council grant review panel from 1986 to 1994, and from 1995, until failing health forced him to stand down in 1999, he chaired the Northern Ireland Sports Forum, which worked with 85 governing bodies. Among much charitable work, he was a trustee of the Leonard Cheshire Foundation and a past president of Belfast Rotary Club. His numerous achievements were recognised by the award of an OBE last January.
He is survived by his wife Paddy (nee Caldwell), a former teacher, whom he married in 1959, and their two sons, Michael and Stephen.
Kenneth Ernest Reid: born 1931; died, April 2001