JDR Kelly

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John Denis Ryan KELLY

John Denis Ryan Kelly, was appointed to the Overseas Committee of The save the Children’s Fund in 1984. He was the only son of Dr. Tom Kelly (who was born in Aileen, Co. Tipperary, and went to South Africa in 1921). John was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and at Balliol College, Oxford where he was an undergraduate from 1939 to 1941. He joined the army as a Lieutenant and became a Captain in the Black Watch (a regiment that his father was in World War I). John saw service in North Africa and in Europe.

He became a lawyer in 1943 and after the war he was appointed Legal Adviser, International Refugee Organisation based in the British Zone in Germany 1948-9, and became Special Representative to the Allied High Command and German Government in 1950. In 1952 he was appointed Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1959. He worked for the United Nations in the Congo from 1960 to 1961 and became United Nations to Ireland and the United Kingdom in 1961.

John was based in London from 1960 to 1972 and during this time he carried out a number of Special Missions for the U.N. These included Algeria 1962, Nepal 1964, Southern Africa 1967, Sudan 1967-68, Caribbean 1968, Buenos Aires 1975, Uganda 1977. He was Chief of Missions in East Pakistan/ Bangladesh 1971-2. He was Director of Legal Affairs in Geneva from 1972 to 1978 and was Chief of Mission in Cyprus from 1974 to 1975 and in Lebanon in 1978 and was Special UN Representative in Kampuchea from 1982 to 1984. [I am grateful to John Kelly, Chadville, Cappaghwhite, Co. Tipperary, for these notes and for material on John Denis’s father Dr. Tom Kelly (1921)]

Dr. Joe M Kelly. Oranmore, Co Galway.