Jim Dunne: As editor of Business and Financemagazine and later as business and finance editor of The Irish Times, Jim Dunne was one of the most feared, yet most respected, journalists in business and financial circles in Ireland.
Born in Tipperary in November 1941, he attended primary school in Tipperary, where his mother, Maureen, was a teacher. He then attended St Clement's College in Limerick before going to study at University College Galway, with the intention of joining the Redemptorist Order, but later set his mind against this course and graduated with a degree in French in 1964.
Between 1966 and 1968 he lived in Bordeaux in France, where he worked for publishers Herder and reported for the Herder magazine Correspondence. Returning to Ireland, he became public relations officer for the Western Tourism Organisation. He lectured in French and English at the College of Commerce in Rathmines, Dublin, before joining the Irish Press, specialising in tourism, and in 1973 joined Business and Finance.
He was credited with raising the status and circulation of the magazine and was head-hunted by The Irish Timesto take over its business and finance section in 1987. He left the newspaper in 2002.
Jim was involved from the beginning with the Guinness Garda/GAA tournament, then one of the biggest sponsorships of its kind in the GAA, as well as the tournament sponsored by CMI, forerunner of Corus, He continued for years to be unofficial PRO for the Garda GAA club.
Jim travelled extensively in the course of his career, both in his tourism and business briefs. He was an accomplished pianist, a film buff and a voracious reader.
Although he no longer wrote for newspapers, in recent years he kept up correspondence with many people, including his favourite radio station, Lyric FM.
In spite of what some regarded as a formidable exterior, which softened over the years, Jim was a bon viveur. He loved food and good wines and enjoyed nothing more than to talk and gossip with the many friends he had kept over the years - people such as Maeve Binchy, the recently-retired chief executive of the Irish Stock Exchange Tom Healy, and former detective chief superintendent Jim Murphy, as well as many lesser-known friends to whom he was so loyal and who were loyal to him.
Jim is survived by his sister Dorothy, his brother John, sister-in-law Mary, nephew Kerry and stepmother Maureen.
Jim Dunne: born November 24th, 1941; died June 25th, 2007.