COXSACKIE, N.Y., July 22 (UPI) -- Henry William "Paddy" Thornberry, a longtime sports editor for United Press International, died Sunday while visiting his daughter from his native Ireland. He was 76.
Thornberry joined United Press, as it was then known, in 1947, after serving in Palestine as a British Army paratrooper. He was born Jan. 16, 1926, and attended local schools in Dublin and later the London School of Economics.
"He had a ball with UPI," said his daughter, Susan Maraglio, and often regaled the family with tales of office high jinks.
Thornberry covered several Olympics, including Melbourne and Rome, and his daughter says she went along to some "which was wonderful."
Maraglio said the family moved to New York in 1968, where Thornberry was assistant editor on the international desk.
In 1974 he left UPI to join the New York Times News Service, where in 1984 he became executive editor.
He retired in 1988 and moved back to Ireland, living with his wife, Gertrude, and a younger daughter, Carol, in Bray.
John C. Donahue Jr., now 82, of Northfield, Vt., was a United Press foreign correspondent in Paris in the late 1940s until the end of 1953.
"We've lost a prince," Donahue said.
"He was in London after the war when I joined the wire in Paris. We knew each other from a distance. I Got to know him much better when he was assistant managing editor of the New York Times News Service and I shipped on there part time. ... It was a hotbed of UP retreads."
"(He was) a topflight newsman and a sweetheart of a guy," Donahue concluded.
He was recruited to the New York Times News Service by Rob Roy Buckingham, now 82, the service's editor and general manager. The two met in London, where Buckingham was UP's European continental editor.
"He was one of the finest newspaper men I ever knew," Buckingham said.
"He was so loyal. I was trying to build up the New York Times News Service, and recruited a lot of people from UPI and Associated Press -- especially Unipressers, since they were generally more willing to leave. I tried to recruit him when he moved to the United States, but Paddy told me he couldn't just walk out. He felt he owed it to UPI. It was a year before he finally came over."
Buckingham said Thornberry met his wife, Gertrude, through UP.
"She was one of the telephone operators at United Press in London. In those days, the operators were real important. There was no internet or e-mail so it was their job to dug people out of the woodwork -- find 'em and get 'em on the 'phone no matter what. She was a crackerjack."
In addition to his wife and daughters, Thornberry is survived by two brothers, Paul of Wendover, England and Kevin of Monkstown, Ireland, a sister Anne Robinson of Bray; two grandchildren and numerous nieces and nephews in Ireland, England and Singapore.
A viewing will be held Tuesday from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the W.C. Brady's Sons funeral home, 97 Mansion St., Coxsackie, N.Y., with funeral services Wednesday at 10 a.m. at St. Mary's Church, 80 Mansion St. Burial will be private.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Alzheimer's Association, Capital district Chapter, Albany, N.Y.
