Ireland. The approach he devised to educate the population on the arguments over European issues was so successful that many other European countries adopted similar methods. In later life, Hayes was a member of the Royal Irish Academy and the Research Ethical Committee of Queen's University Belfast medical school, and a governor of the Linenhall Library, Belfast. He was a long-serving member of the Scholarship Board of the O'Reilly Foundation. He was also a board member at Regtel. Hayes was asked by Mary Harney, when she was the Minister for Health in the Republic of Ireland, and the HSE to conduct a review into a scandal in the radiology department at Tallaght Hospital on the outskirts of Dublin. Personal life Hayes was a county hurler, who in the mid-1950s became County Secretary of the Down Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) and set a ten-year plan for the county football team to become the first from Northern Ireland to win an All-Ireland football final. Within five years, Down had won their first All-Ireland trophy in 1960. They followed it with further successes in 1961, 1968, 1991 and 1994. No other Northern team won an All-Ireland title until Derry won the football title in 1993. Hayes died in Downe Hospital after a long illness on 23 December 2017 at the age of 90. Awards Hayes was voted European Person of the Year in 2003. He also received honorary doctorates from his alma mater; from both Queen's University Belfast and University of Ulster in the UK, as well as Trinity College, University of Dublin and National University of Ireland in the Republic of Ireland. References External links The O'Reilly Foundation - Scholarship Board, photo and short profiles 1927 births 2017 deaths Civil servants from Northern Ireland Down County Board administrators Down hurlers Independent members of Seanad Éireann Independent News & Media Irish Independent people Irish sportsperson-politicians Male non-fiction writers from Northern Ireland Members of the 21st Seanad Members of the 22nd Seanad Members of the Royal Irish Academy Nominated members of Seanad Éireann Ombudsmen in Northern Ireland O'Reilly Foundation People from County Down Secretaries of county boards of the Gaelic Athletic Association 21st-century writers from Northern Ireland