At the age of four, after a nasty accident involving a tricycle and a lamppost, Terry Prone was robbed of her speech and required elocution lessons to learn how to talk again. She later recalled that these lessons revolved mostly around learning poetry and how they ingrained in her an enduring appreciation of the power and beauty of words. This was the start of her journey to becoming one of Ireland’s most gifted communicators.
Over the course of a glittering career, Terry Prone has worn many hats. She has been an actor, a writer, a journalist and an advisor to successive governments. She has written 30 books, served on numerous public service boards and now runs her own communications consultancy. To each of these roles she has brought the same rare and invaluable combination: she has something to say, and she is a master at imparting her message effectively.
Terry Prone was born in Dublin in 1949. Her mother was a piano teacher and her father – a staunch trade unionist – was a clerk in the Dublin Gas Company. Hilary, her sister, was eight years older than Terry and excelled in school in a way Terry did not. But while Terry did not enjoy her studies, she always had a voracious appetite for knowledge. Plagued by ill health for much of her childhood, she did most of her learning not in the classroom but at home, with her head in a book.
Even as a young child, Terry Prone had big dreams, and she was blessed with the imagination to pursue them. At six and a half, she won her first drama competition for reading poetry at the Father Mathew Feis. Flushed with success, Terry made a resolution on the spot: she was going to become the greatest Irish actress of her generation. She spent her childhood and teenage years chasing this goal, and from the age of 13, began appearing on RTÉ Television on a programme called Teen Talk, which was presented by the legendary broadcaster Bunny Carr. Some envious classmates pointed out that Terry was too young to take on the role – all the other panellists were at least 16. But she was precocious and unique, asking on her first appearance why thumb-sucking was frowned upon in society when it “was free, it didn’t make you fat and it didn’t give you cancer”. Unsurprisingly, she quickly became a regular on the show.
Two years later, having once again exaggerated her age by claiming to be 16, Terry secured a scholarship to study at the Abbey Theatre School of Acting. In the years that followed, she would spend her days in school studying for her Leaving Certificate and her nights in the wings of the Abbey, prompting on-stage actors when they forgot their lines.
Because education was extremely important to her parents, 18-year-old Terry Prone started studying arts at University College Dublin despite her own misgivings. In her second year, however, she was presented with the choice of either taking her exams or travelling to London as part of an Abbey production of The Shaughraun, written by Irish playwright Dion Boucicault. She chose the latter and, as she later put it, has still to complete her university degree.
Terry Prone’s decision to eschew her studies did not hold her back. She had cultivated connections in the media during her teenage years and began a successful freelance career that spanned radio, TV and print. While she was young and cutting her teeth in an industry not exactly known for its progressive attitude to women, she had an instinctive understanding of how the media worked and a charisma that pulled people to her. She quickly excelled both as a writer with the Irish Press and as a radio reporter at RTÉ. She has also written for The Irish Times, the Irish Independent, The Sunday Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian, the Daily Mail and more. During this time, Terry Prone developed a reputation as a top-class author. She has written eight novels, an award-winning collection of short stories and more than a dozen practical guidebooks.
While the media has been a central tenet of Terry Prone’s career, her true passion is training. She has spoken about the joy of helping people unlock their potential and firmly believes that clear communication can help change people’s lives. It was these principles that prompted her to move into communications in the 1970s. Along with Bunny Carr and Tom Savage, her late husband, Terry Prone was central to the establishment of Carr Communications, a company that was set up with the bold new idea of offering not only public relations advice to corporate clients but also media training to journalists, broadcasters and politicians.
Nearly 50 years later, Terry Prone is now the chairman of the Communications Clinic, a company she founded with Tom Savage in 2008. As one of the pioneers of Ireland’s PR industry, Terry has adapted with the times; her firm has worked with some of the biggest brands in the world and has offered guidance to a line of government ministers over the years. She worked with Enda Kenny, then Taoiseach, on a crucial state-of-the-nation address he delivered in 2011.
Politics can be a difficult business, often laden with spin, but Terry Prone has always brought a deep sense of integrity to her work. For her, the truth is absolute. In her teens, she was enraptured by the observation that through drama, actors could convey the truth in its purest form to audiences and move them in unexpected ways. She has brought the same ethos to her career in PR. In her own words, if you get your message right and you’re truthful, you can change lives.
While Terry Prone has been in the public eye for nearly 60 years, she is as vibrant and stimulating as ever. Her weekly column in the Irish Examiner covers topics ranging from the silly – her take on the air fryer – to the deeply serious. She is a master of the art of provoking her audience – to laughter, tears or thought – through the quality of her messaging. Terry Prone has left an enduring mark on Ireland’s media landscape and contributed significantly to Irish public life. It is for this that University of Limerick honours her today.
Chancellor, I present to you Terry Prone and ask that you confer upon her the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters.