| Born County Tipperary. Son of Major H H P Deasy, explorer and industrialist, educated Ampleforth and Oxford, BA (economics/politics). He was the central figure in the militant campaign by farmers to secure price increases for agricultural products during the 1960s. He returned to farm the holding in Carrigahorig, County Tipperary in 1945 after serving as an artillery officer in the Irish army during World War II. He helped to found the National (later the Irish) Farmers' Association (IFA) in 1956 and was elected its president in 1962, a position he held until 1967. After retiring from the IFA he was briefly involved in politics with the Labour Party. He was involved with the ecumenical movement in Glenstal and maintained a strong interest in politics throughout his life, particularly issues of reconciliation in Northern Ireland. He died in July 1999. (Source: Modern Irish Lives: Dictionary of 20th-century Biography, Louis McRedmond (General Ed.), Gill & Macmillan, Dublin, 1996)
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