Andrew Hamilton, a senior journalist with The Irish Times and for many years its motoring correspondent, died on Saturday at Craigavon Hospital in Co Armagh after suffering a heart attack.
Born into a farming family in Newtownstewart, Co Tyrone, in 1941, he was just weeks away from his 65th birthday.
Andrew Hamilton worked as a motoring correspondent for more than 30 years and was elected to the European Car of the Year jury in 1980.
He was due to retire from this role, and from his work in The Irish Times, next month, having scaled back on his motoring journalism in recent years.
Hamilton began his career in journalism with the Impartial Reporter in Fermanagh before moving to Dublin in the early 1960s, where he made his name working as a news reporter and as an assistant news editor in The Irish Times.
He briefly left the newspaper to work as a southern reporter for the Belfast Telegraph, but returned news in 1964. He reported on many of the major stories of the time, including the Burntollet march from Belfast to Derry in 1969 and the Arms Trial in 1970.
He covered the Tiede Herrema siege in 1975 and the Whiddy Island oil-tanker explosion with colleagues Frank McDonald and Dick Hogan in 1979.
He also reported from the Dáil, Stormont and Westminster as well as working as an assistant news editor.
However, it was his passion for cars and travel which dominated his career from the 1970s. He was known to the most senior executives of most of the large motor manufacturing companies and was one of the most widely-travelled Irish journalists, regularly reporting on the big motor shows in cities such as Geneva, Detroit and Tokyo as well as on developments in the motor trade in Ireland.
He was motoring editor when the weekly Motors supplement was launched by The Irish Times in 2002 and he had been working up to the time of his death.
He is survived by a sister, Joy, and a brother, Roy. His funeral will be held following a service at 2pm tomorrow at Ardstraw Church of Ireland parish church in Newtownstewart.
The Editor of The Irish Times, Geraldine Kennedy, said last night that Andrew Hamilton was a great colleague. "He was open-minded, sociable and possessed a wry sense of humour.
"He was always so proud of his farming background in Northern Ireland and, from this perspective, brought his own personal influence to bear on the editorial policy of the newspaper. The Irish Times was his home. He will be sadly missed by those who knew him."
