Getting into the end zone is an apt metaphor for Dan Rooney’s distinguished life, not just as the owner of the Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers, but for his feats off the gridiron as well.

While his most public persona may well be Builder of the Steelers Football Dynasty, Rooney is a reigning champion when it comes to matters of family, religious devotion, community building and public service.

Everyone who follows sports knows about Rooney’s skills as a fair-minded, skilled businessman and as a sports lover. He learned his values and business savvy from his father Art, who purchased the Steelers in the 1930s and steadily built it into a vibrant sports enterprise before handing it off to Dan and his siblings in the early 1970s. 

Anyone growing up in Pittsburgh knows about the indelible contribution the Rooney family has made to the quality of life in the Steel City and western Pennsylvania.   Rooney and his wife Patricia (nee Regan) and their children are benefactors to Presbyterian University Hospital, the American Diabetes Association and the Pittsburgh History and Landmark Foundation.   And Rooney – a near-daily communicant - is deeply involved in supporting Catholic causes, including the Holy Family Institute, Catholic Charities, Catholic Youth Association, and Duquesne University – his alma mater.   

Star of the County Down

Rooney is a second-generation Irish-American whose grandfather, also named Dan Rooney, came to Pittsburgh from Newry, County Down, in the 1880s, along with thousands of Irish immigrants seeking work in the coal mines and steel mills.   He settled in Pittsburgh’s gritty North Side – where the family still lives - and by the turn of the century opened his own saloon.  From there, the Rooneys worked their way up the American ladder of success, culminating in the Steelers, one of the most successful sports franchises in the world.  It’s a story that genuinely resonates in this city – and nation – of immigrants.

Nine decades after his grandfather left Northern Ireland, Dan Rooney returned there in the 1970s - during the height of the Troubles - and was startled by what he saw in Newry and surrounding towns.  “I witnessed some of the worst violence and destruction I have ever seen,” he recalled.   

Returning to Pittsburgh, Rooney was moved to respond in some tangible way.  In 1976 he teamed up with Tony O’Reilly of the Heinz Company to form the American Ireland Fund, an organization that galvanized the concern and the largesse of thousands of Irish-Americans like Rooney.  Dedicated to non-violence and headquartered in Boston, the AIF quickly spread throughout the USA and ultimately around the world.  It has raised over $300 million to support peace, culture and education in Ireland and Northern Ireland, and in recent years has supported Irish-American organizations too.

Over the years, the Rooneys found other ways to support the Irish: in 1987 they initiated an annual cash prize for literature awarded to Irish writers under 40 who showed promise in fiction, poetry or drama.  In 1989 Rooney co-founded the Ireland Institute of Pittsburgh, which brings Irish youth to the USA to gain experience in the work sector while developing economic partnerships between Pennsylvania and Northern Ireland.   

When President Barack Obama  selected Rooney as U.S. Ambassador Ireland on March 17, 2009, it marked the culmination of Rooney’s four decade commitment to peace and prosperity for the island of Ireland.   For Rooney, it was a win-win situation: he has the high honor of serving his nation through the U.S. diplomatic corps, plus he gets the opportunity to further help the ancestral homeland he loves so well. 

Ambassador Rooney was sworn into office on July 1, 2009  by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and two days later he presented his credentials to Ireland’s President Mary McAleese. Since then he has actively worked to strengthen the economic and cultural bonds between Ireland and the USA; one of his personal goals is to visit all 32 counties in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

This story first appeared in the Travel & Culture Guide, November 2009, published by Boston Irish Tourism Association.

U.S. Embassy in Dublin  dublin.usembassy.gov/