My good friend Patrick Kelly, who has died of most cancers aged 68, was a press officer, journalist and writer who wrote for a lot of publications, together with the Guardian, the Night Commonplace in London and the Irish Occasions. He additionally co-founded, with me, the journal Arts Business, a month-to-month publication for these working within the cultural industries.
Born in Belfast, Patrick was one of many six kids of Laurence, an workplace supervisor for a commerce writer, and Kathleen (nee Carey), a waitress. He went to St Malachy’s RC college within the metropolis, after which studied historical past and politics at Warwick College, the place he grew to become concerned in pupil politics, together with a 1975 occupation of the establishment’s senate constructing throughout a lease strike.
After graduating he labored on the Hillingdon Mirror newspaper in Uxbridge, Middlesex, and was lively as a member of the Nationwide Union of Journalists in native and nationwide disputes.
In 1982 he went to work as a press officer for the Larger London council and for Ken Livingstone, in whose identify he wrote articles through the GLC’s confrontations with Margaret Thatcher. He additionally labored alongside John McDonnell, later a Labour shadow chancellor, who praised him for his trustworthiness in addition to his “judgment and humanity”.
Patrick left the GLC shortly earlier than it was abolished, transferring on to develop into a press officer on the Affiliation of London Authorities.
In 1987 he resigned from that job with a view to spend two years in Barcelona, overlaying the information as a stringer for the Guardian and different newspapers. After returning to London in 1991 he and Julia Unwin, a social coverage marketing consultant, moved in collectively in Southwark, and he continued to freelance for the Guardian, Each day Telegraph, Impartial, Irish Occasions, the Occasions, Night Commonplace and New Statesman.
He was additionally employed on a contract foundation by the London boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Camden to arrange in-house publications for them.
Round that point Patrick additionally grew to become concerned in native politics. He was elected to Southwark council for the Labour occasion in 1998 and was chair of the council’s schooling committee.
He and Julia married in 2006 and the next yr, when she grew to become chief government of the Joseph Rowntree Basis, they moved with their two daughters, Annie and Rachel, to York. There Patrick chaired York Labour occasion for a time and have become a supporter of York Metropolis soccer membership. He additionally continued to collectively co-edit Arts Business and to contribute as a freelancer to different publications.
In 2014 he undertook a artistic writing MA at Limerick College in Eire and subsequently wrote a novel, A Onerous Place, set within the Belfast of his youth. He was identified with most cancers in 2019 and have become gravely sick late final yr, a couple of days after the guide was revealed.
Patrick had a present for forging enduring friendships. He had a magnetic heat and his nice pleasure was to spend as a lot time as he may with household and buddies.
He’s survived by Julia, Annie and Rachel.
