Arthur Walls who died on May 27th aged 74 years, enjoyed a long career almost equally divided between aviation and retailing. He used to say that he was probably the only man in Ireland who sold tights and Boeing 747s - on the same day.
The latter 20 years of his career were given to Clery & Co as chief executive and deputy chairman but his lifelong obsession was with airlines. He was 25 years with Aer Lingus and after joining Clery's full-time in 1973 he was invited in 1982 by Tony Ryan to be chairman of Air Tara, a subsidiary of Guinness Peat Aviation. In 1986 he was appointed chairman of Ryanair.
He was one of the first graduate engineers (mechanical and electrical) to be taken on by Aer Lingus in 1948. It was the era of the DC3 aircraft and as senior development engineer he had a key role in the introduction of the Fokker 27 and the Viscount (700/800 series) on the airline's UK and developing continental routes.
He had tremendous energy and enthusiasm, an outgoing personality, a good sense of humour, often self deprecating, great social skills all of which were not lost on Michael Dargan, the personnel manager, who saw his potential for a brilliant career in sales. With his sharp analytical mind he could assess situations very quickly and make decisions rapidly (some of which he later said weren't the best). While he listened sympathetically to staff problems he believed in letting people appointed to do the job get on with it. He became a key member of the management group who successfully built up the Aer Lingus sales infrastructure in Britain, continental Europe and the US which laid the foundation for the spectacular growth of the airline as it moved into the jet age. From being a small operator servicing passengers to and from Britain, Aer Lingus had by the late 1960s become the most dynamic marketing force in promoting Ireland and Irish tourism overseas. In 1959 he was appointed general sales manager and subsequently moved up to assistant general manager (technical).
While in this post he had the duty of presiding, as chairman, over the Aer Lingus investigation into the Tuskar Rock Viscount crash in 1968, in which his brother Desmond lost his life. Appointed to the job of general manager in 1972, he served for less than a year before leaving Aer Lingus to take up the post of managing director of Ryan Trader's Distribution, a British-based motor accessories company .
After four years he was invited by the Guiney family to take the job of chief executive and deputy chairman of Clery & Co. In his new career he transformed the traditional family business to allow it to compete with the onset of overseas chain stores selling brand labels in out-of-town shopping centres. Franchising was introduced to lure in the younger set, hardware products were either dropped or transferred elsewhere, a wider range of goods was on sale, staff numbers were reduced - all of which brought about "a healthy financial situation". Arthur Walls retained an interest in the business up to a few weeks before his death .
He saw Clery's as his security, his day job, as he called it, while being chairman of Ryanair gave him entree to the fast-changing scene in aviation. As chairman of Ryanair he initiated an intensive campaign for the abolition of the mandatory Shannon stopover and predicted in 1991 that it would be gone within two years.
As a young man he played hockey for Portrane, was a keen tennis player and while he played the odd game of golf his social life was centred mostly around his family . A teetotaller for most of his life, he gave time and service to the Stanhope Centre. His professional associations included Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and a Fellow and past Chairman of the Chartered Institute of Transport in Ireland.
He was the second of three boys and a daughter born to Arthur, a civil servant with the Revenue Department, and Marie Murray. She was a first cousin of James Joyce and was well known in Dublin music circles in her day. Joyce wrote to her from Paris and Trieste to check street names and places in Dublin while he was writing Ulysses. Her mother Josephine, sister of Joyce's mother, May, features in Joyce's story The Dead (Aunt Josephine) made into a film by John Huston.
He is survived by his wife Pearl; daughters Anne; Sheila; and Brenda; son David; sister Pat; brothers Bertie and Dermot. His brother Desmond predeceased him.
Arthur Walls: born 1926; died, May 2000