fb-pixelRobert J. Dunfey Sr., 88, ‘unsung hero’ of N. Ireland peace process - The Boston Globe Skip to main content

Robert J. Dunfey Sr., 88, ‘unsung hero’ of N. Ireland peace process

<?EM-dummyText [Drophead goes here] ?>

Robert J. Dunfey Sr.Bachrach Photography

Lowell native Robert J. Dunfey Sr. spent decades working behind the scenes for peace in Northern Ireland, brokering meetings among key players while drawing on the lessons of politics he learned while campaigning for Robert F. Kennedy.

He was part of a large family that started out with a Hampton Beach, N.H., clam shack in the 1940s and turned it into an international hotel company that also rejuvenated the historic Parker House in Boston.

Mr. Dunfey, meanwhile, was "an exceptional person" who knew "the simple power of humanizing over demonizing," said Martin O'Brien, a friend and Irish human rights activist. "People are alive today because of the steps Bob took to bring the key actors in the conflict together," O'Brien said.

Advertisement



Mr. Dunfey, who had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, died Aug. 23 in a Dover, N.H., hospice. He was 88, lived in Portsmouth, N.H., and formerly was a longtime resident of Cape Elizabeth, Maine.

"When the history books are written, they may not record Bob's significant contribution to the peace process. That will suit Bob just fine," O'Brien told mourners at a gathering following Mr. Dunfey's funeral in Portsmouth. "His humility was such that he preferred to be in the background making things happen, rather than being on the stage claiming the credit."

Mr. Dunfey, who led the campaign in Maine for Robert Kennedy's 1968 presidential bid before the senator was assassinated, was drawn into tackling the Northern Ireland conflict known as "The Troubles" because of his affinity for his ancestral homeland, his family said. He built a home in County Kerry in Ballyferriter and was a director of the American Ireland Fund.

After Bloody Sunday in 1972, when British soldiers shot and killed unarmed Roman Catholic civil rights marchers in Derry, Mr. Dunfey and his brothers concluded as Irish-American businessmen that Ireland could not prosper as long as the people of Northern Ireland suffered.

Advertisement



Mr. Dunfey "was an unsung hero of the Northern Ireland peace process," Shankill community worker Jackie Redpath wrote in a tribute in the Belfast Telegraph. The Shankill Road area is a mostly Protestant loyalist working class community in Belfast.

Mr. Dunfey, whose family members were prominent backers of Democratic politicians, helped arrange meetings in the late 1990s between loyalist leaders and George Mitchell, a former US senator from Maine who was America's special envoy to Northern Ireland. The meetings ensured that Mitchell heard "the reality of deprivation behind the 'Troubles' headlines," Redpath wrote.

In a 2010 interview for an oral history project at Bowdoin College, Mr. Dunfey reflected on those days. Mitchell "really got along well with the Northern Irish because he had the same Irish sense of humor," Mr. Dunfey said.

O'Brien said Mr. Dunfey "frequently drove the powers that be mad. He was engaging with the 'pariahs.' He was getting his hands dirty. He didn't care that he wasn't popular for doing it. In fact, I'm sure he enjoyed irritating the hell out of some."

Born in 1928, the seventh of 12 children, Mr. Dunfey grew up in an immigrant haven in Lowell known as The Acre. He went to a Catholic school for boys in Lowell called Keith Academy.

His father, LeRoy W., and his mother, the former Catherine Manning, were the children of Irish immigrants. His mother went to work in the textile mills at age 14.

Advertisement



Nearly a century ago, the Dunfeys opened a luncheonette in the neighborhood, where Mr. Dunfey worked as a boy. He was too young to join his three older brothers when they left to fight in World War II.

His father was an orchestra leader and Mr. Dunfey grew up with a love of dancing and music. Mr. Dunfey's sister Eleanor said he taught her to dance and used to twirl her around the family kitchen until she was dizzy.

Their father, who died in 1952, also held the unpaid post of welfare commissioner in Lowell.

"Bob learned that any hardship we might have was not as tough as the plight of others," said Eleanor, a professor emerita at Southern New Hampshire University. "He learned early to serve up healthy doses of empathy and humor along with turkey sandwiches and a hot coffee."

After the war, the family opened their first clam stand. Mr. Dunfey and his brother Jack packed Jack's small plane with potatoes for clam shack fries and flew the two-seater to Hampton Airfield. The men would fly over the ocean and tip the wings to announce the potatoes had arrived, said Eleanor, who now lives in Exeter, N.H.

The Dunfeys bought their first hotel in 1954 in Hampton. They later bought hotels in New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Washington, and their company became Omni Hotels. They sold the company in the 1980s.

In the 1970s, Mr. Dunfey took the lead in the family's effort to renovate Boston's famous Parker House and restore its faded glory. The landmark hotel was a 19th century literary hot spot for poets and novelists, and a 20th century hangout for Mayor James Michael Curley and John F. Kennedy. Mr. Dunfey also developed the Maine Mall.

Advertisement



With an eye toward resolving conflicts around the world, Mr. Dunfey was founding treasurer and director of the nonprofit New England Circle/Global Citizens Circle, which started 40 years ago to bring leaders and activists together.

He was in his 70s when he married Jeanette Marston.

His first marriage, to Shirley Corey, ended in divorce. They had five children.

In addition to his wife, Jeanette, and his sister Eleanor, Mr. Dunfey leaves two daughters, Eileen of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, and Maryanne of North Conway, N.H.; three sons, Robert Jr. of Cape Elizabeth, Roy of Portland, Maine, and Brian of South Berwick, Maine; two brothers, Jack of Boston and Jerry of Lutry, Switzerland; another sister, Eileen Robinson of Bradenton, Fla.; 10 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

A service was held at St. John's Episcopal Church in Portsmouth, and burial will be in Ballyferriter, Ireland.

"In our brother Bob, we have a real role model for living a genuinely good life: a spiritually grounded hard-working, empathetic, humble, and fun-loving human being who never drew his circle of family too small," O'Brien said.


J.M. Lawrence can be reached at jmlawrence@me.com.