Biography
An authorised biography, The Player: The Life of Tony O'Reilly, was produced by Ivan Fallon, a journalist and biographer in the early 1990s, now a senior executive at one of O'Reilly's companies, and is the only study of any length. O'Reilly facilitated the project, and the author was given access to family members, including past and current wives, and to staff and business colleagues.
Fallon insisted in the foreword that he had complete discretion on what to include and how to tell it, excluding only some private family matters. While giving great detail on some business matters, the book says almost nothing about O'Reilly's children and little of his second wife. It gives considerable detail on business matters, and does question some of O'Reilly's assertions, notably about his Irish business interests. It also gives much detail on O'Reilly's parents' situations and especially his father's family, detail which the author notes even O'Reilly did not have until the book gathered it, and includes some fine detail about his residences.
Read more about this topic: Tony O'Reilly
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