Michael Daly (Senior), a member of the BBG since its earliest days, died in August at the age of 93 after nearly 50 years in Abu Dhabi. He was born in Cork, Ireland, in 1914.

Having spent nearly 20 years in Palestine, Bahrain, Syria and Iraq, mainly with the oil industry, Mike came to Abu Dhabi in 1958 to set up the ADMA Training Centres in the town and on Das Island, playing an important part in the early part not only of Abu Dhabi’s oil industry, but also of the introduction of technical education for local boys, many of whom later rose to important positions in government and the oil industry.

In 1967, Mike officially retired, and, having been given land by HH Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, decided to stay and set up his own business, Bin Moosa Daly, later taking one of his former students into partnership with him. One of the capital’s oldest trading companies, it began by importing and supplying water fittings and building materials, mainly from Britain, and subsequently diversifying into a wide range of products.

Mike was a founder of The Club, The Irish Society, the Abu Dhabi Rugby Club and the Abu Dhabi Golf Club and was awarded a medal by Pope John XXIII in 1965 on the occasion of the inauguration of the firstCatholicChurchinAbu Dhabi for his services to the Catholic community. He was also instrumental in the founding of the Daly Community Library, named after his late wife.

All of that notwithstanding, Mike was also very much a businessman, working successfully to build up his own company, with the help both of his Sales Director, Mukhtar Ali, who also died a few weeks ago, after 38 years with Bin Moosa Daly, and, in recent years, of his son, Michael Daly Junior. He was a fount of knowledge and experience, generously shared, particularly with newcomers who ventured to ask, and an elder statesman both of the BBG and the other bodies mentioned above and of Abu Dhabi’s community from the British Isles – not the ‘British community’, for he remained very much an Irishman.

Michael Daly Senior helped to lay the foundations of Abu Dhabi’s oil industry and of its business community. He will be sadly missed.