Pat Karney

Karney died on 13 October 2026 at The Christie in Manchester, aged 78. Manchester City Council said he had been receiving treatment for cancer and was grateful for the care he received there. The council announced his death that evening and said a book of condolence, including an online version, would be opened. His last post on X, the day before he died, was about the Manchester Evening News Christmas markets guide. Funeral arrangements had not been announced in the first reports.

Pat Karney was born in Dublin in 1948 and moved to Manchester at the age of nine. He grew up in Collyhurst and Harpurhey in north Manchester and remained closely tied to those neighbourhoods for the rest of his life. Before entering elected politics he worked as a social services manager for Salford City Council. He was immensely proud of his Irish heritage and later became a leading figure in Manchester's Irish community and Irish Festival.

Karney was elected as Labour councillor for Harpurhey in May 1979 and held the seat until his death in 2026. He became the council's leading voice on the city centre, serving as Lead Member for the City Centre and later as Associate Executive Member. He chaired the City Centre Committee at the time of the 1996 IRA bombing and was closely involved in the long rebuild that followed.

He helped establish the Manchester Day festival and was for years the public face of Manchester's Christmas markets, which grew into a major annual attraction. He was a director of Cityco from 2000 and of Marketing Manchester from 2002 to 2014, and served as secretary of the council's Labour Group as an ally of former leader Sir Richard Leese. He was also involved for years in the debate over the Piccadilly Gardens wall, arranging after its 2020 demolition to preserve a section carrying a political mural.

His long tenure drew criticism as well as praise. In 2014 commentators questioned whether the city centre had declined under his stewardship. In March 2020 he was accused of bullying Liberal Democrat opposition leader John Leech but was cleared of wrongdoing.

Colleagues described Karney as a private man who nonetheless put himself in the public eye for the city he loved. He was a trailblazer on LGBT equality in Manchester politics, advocating for gay rights in the hostile climate of the 1980s and for the gay village in later decades. Greater Manchester mayor Bev Craig said he sacrificed a lot to be himself and paved the way for generations who came after him. He appeared on the Manchester Evening News podcast The Mancunian Way in 2026 to talk about that history. Details of his immediate family were not widely published in early tributes, which asked that they be given privacy.

Tributes poured in from across Greater Manchester politics and civic life. Council leader Garry Bridges called him a giant of Manchester politics and a one-off whose loss the city would feel deeply. Council chief executive Tom Stannard said he epitomised public service and gave fifty years of his life as a Harpurhey ward councillor. Bev Craig remembered him as Mr Manchester, a force of nature who championed regeneration, public health and bringing people together. Nightlife figure Sacha Lord called him a visionary, a pioneer and a true Mancunian. His lasting public markers include Manchester Day, the Christmas markets he championed, and his early work on LGBT equality and north Manchester investment.