The ‘dreadful breach of trust’ that cost Gaybo his fortune
Gay Byrne was undoubtedly Ireland’s finest broadcaster but his financial dealings caused him huge pain, writes Liam Collins
ON September 28, 1989, Gay Byrne took out a policy with Norwich Union valuing his life at £1m, an astonishing sum of money at that time, but a figure that would prove to be a recurring theme in his life.
It not only valued the man, but it guaranteed the property investments that he was dabbling in that would eventually lead to his financial downfall — for a second time.
Possibly because of his frugal upbringing, Gay Byrne was attentive about property and money and over the years one swallowed the other.
The family rented a ‘two up two down’ redbrick house at 17 Rialto Street in Dublin’s south inner city before moving up the social ladder in 1944 to what is now 512 South Circular Road. But it was his strong-willed mother Annie, bringing up five children, who was determined that her youngest son, Gabriel, would get a “steady job” rather than following his dream of becoming a broadcaster.
Was it because of these early expectations that he was often insecure about his finances all through his life, even though he was for many years Ireland’s highest paid broadcaster?
Much later in life, when he was reckoned to be a millionaire, Gay Byrne could remember the figures: the £5 he got for presenting his first sponsored programme for Urneys on Radio Eireann, the £250 to commentate on stock car racing which left him “speechless” and the “vast money” he was paid by Granada Television in Manchester when he signed on to present People and Places and become the first broadcaster to interview The Beatles.
It was then that he needed an agent and an accountant, and his hero Eamonn Andrews introduced him to both.
Unfortunately for Gay Byrne the accountant was Russell Murphy, a patrician figure brought up at No 16 Temple Villas, Palmerstown Road in Rathmines, who practised at Henry M Murphy, chartered accountant at 5 Trinity Street, Dublin 2. A devout Catholic with theatrical flair and a cigarette in an elegant holder clenched between his teeth, he kept two boxes at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin and showered his clients, who included the writer Hugh Leonard, actress Siobhan McKenna and Gaybo, with presents and tickets to opening nights.
After doing the Christmas shopping on Grafton Street they would repair to his office for festive drinks. Murphy was godfather to Gay’s eldest daughter, Crona, “and a very good godfather” he would admit later, through gritted teeth. The accountant would fuss over his famous clients and none more so than Gay, growing rich and famous as presenter of The Late Late Show on television and The Gay Byrne Show on radio.
Gay Byrne had set up a company called Omnico in 1966, probably advised by Murphy. In 1972 he had invested in a commercial building at No 56 Dawson Street, Dublin which now houses Hodges Figgis bookshop. But he had also unwittingly given power of attorney to his accountant, allowing Russell Murphy complete discretion to do as he wished with his money.
On April 12, 1984, a death notice for Charles Russell Murphy appeared in the Irish Independent. He had, it said, died “after an illness heroically borne” and was mourned deeply by his wife Marie (Fawsitt) and his children, Henry, Paula and Frank. Gay Byrne attended his Requiem Mass in the Church of the Holy Name in Beechwood Avenue in Ranelagh, where his other famous client, Hugh Leonard, gave the eulogy.
An idea of his standing in the city’s tight business community could be gauged by a tribute published the following Tuesday signed TVM, which everyone in business circles knew was the abbreviation of TV Murphy, a former chairman of Independent Newspapers: “Last week Dublin heard with great shock and sorrow of the death of Russell Murphy. Russell, apart from being a brilliant accountant had many business clients seek his advice in their lives. In Russell there was a true Christian whose only holiday was one week a year in Lourdes where he worked hard with the sick and bringing cheer and hope to their minds. In his younger days he was a great athlete and held many school records. We have lost a great friend and comforter.”
Apart, that is, from the fact that he was a secret drinker, had separated from his wife and was living in a flat at No 8 Wellington House belonging to Gay Byrne and was robbing money from his two most famous clients.
In his autobiography, The Time of My Life, Gay Byrne titled his most emotional chapter The Betrayal. It oozes with hurt, pain and indignity: “Russell Murphy, one of my closest friends, father-figure; he embezzled all of my life savings. He also used a power of attorney to borrow money for himself, using my investments as collateral. After he died, I found that not only was all my money gone, but I was in serious debt.”
He later initiated legal proceedings against six other accountants who were involved in Henry M Murphy, but denied any association with Russell Murphy. These were discontinued in October, 1989. In the end he reportedly received £72,000 compensation, although he lost an estimated £176,000.
“It is just a dreadful realisation to wake up one morning and realise that this person who you trusted so totally has swindled you in the most calculating and deliberate way, it is a dreadful, dreadful breach of trust and it upsets me greatly,” he said later.
It was an episode that coloured the rest of his life. It left him fretting about his money and who he could trust with it. He was now RTE’s best paid presenter, earning way more than anybody else at the station and had a salary of £500,000 by 1998, although he was never on the staff or a member of the pension fund.
In 1989, impresario Oliver Barry was awarded the licence to open Ireland’s first national commercial radio station, a licence, it was said, to print money. As the year wore on preparations for the opening of Century Radio reached fever pitch and who better to poach from RTE than its biggest star, ‘Uncle Gaybo’?
The week before the station opened that September, Mr Barry arrived for dinner at the Byrne home, Onslow, in The Baily, an upmarket area of Howth. With him he had an envelope with a bank draft for £1m and the offer of a threeyear contract with the station, regardless of whether it was successful or not.
The two men, who were well acquainted, had already discussed the issue on a number of occasions. Now was decision time. Gay Byrne was said to have fondled the envelope lovingly but declined the offer.
He later told the Moriarty Tribunal that while he had a good idea of what was inside the envelope he never opened it. When dinner was over he said to Oliver Barry: “I do not want that in my house overnight, please take it away,” referring to the offer he had just refused.
He said later that if the station failed, as it did, “the mark of failure would be upon me” and although he is believed to have leveraged the situation for a pay rise in RTE, his own insecurities dictated that he stayed with the steady job with the national broadcasting service.
When he retired from RTE in 1999, Gay Byrne was already involved with accountant Derek Quinlan, a former official of the Revenue Commissioners who was operating Quinlan Private, an investment and tax planning service for wealthy clients in entertainment, the legal and medical professions and big business.
In Ireland as the millennium loomed there was only one game in town — property.
Although his investment in Dawson Street, the apartment in Wellington House and an office unit in Clonskeagh Square near UCD were paid off, Gay borrowed huge sums to invest in Quinlan’s property syndicates, which included a hotel in Budapest and property in London. He also invested a large sum of cash in Anglo-Irish Bank shares, which were the ‘hot’ tip in the investment market at the time.
It would later emerge that in 2007 the ‘Clonskeagh Partnership’ with his wife Kathleen and daughters Crona and Suzy, borrowed €1m from Bank of Scotland to fund property investments. After the financial collapse of 2009 Byrne was left struggling to make the repayments. He once explained to me that his real financial difficulties were caused by the concept of ‘loan to value’ in commercial property transactions — as the value of the investment falls the payments increase. This was what was hurting him financially, as he was now retired and didn’t have a steady income stream.
His once high-flying Anglo shares became worthless when the bank collapsed.
While he loved jazz and presenting a show on Lyric FM he put himself through a punishing schedule — the Irish version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, the TV series The Meaning of Life, personal appearances and a one-man show — to keep up with repayments.
In August 2013, he was pictured leaving the Lord Edward restaurant near Dublin Castle with his former financial adviser Derek Quinlan, who had left Ireland to live in Switzerland and later London, following the financial collapse. “I have no hard feelings,” Gay told a reporter.
In 2015, a fund called Feniton, owned by a multi-billion euro business based in Minnesota, USA, called Cargill International, where nobody had probably heard of Gay Byrne, bought his Bank of Scotland loans. In 2018 it began proceedings against Gay Byrne and his wife and children relating to the 2007 loan, which was now stood at €1.226m. After a brief court appearance matters were settled privately.
As his health deteriorated Gay Byrne resigned as a director of his last remaining company, Gabbro, on June 29, 2019. It had accumulated profits of €555,487.
All in all Gay Byrne was undoubtedly Ireland’s greatest broadcaster and a very decent human being, but given the strain he endured financially, especially in his later years, he might have been better keeping his money in the Post Office.
But then again none of us can have it all.
‘Who better to poach from RTE than its biggest star, Uncle Gaybo?’