When Baron Dunne was Mandela’s breakfast host

AS A SOCIAL cachet, breakfast with Nelson Mandela trumped a Big Mac with Bill Clinton or even a banquet with Bono back in 2003. It was the secular equivalent of an audience with the Pope, plus bragging rights and a high envy quotient. It was at the height of the boom, a time when multimillionaire developers tended to parade their celebrity friends and trumpet their support for worthy causes.

And Seán Dunne was of a new generation of rich-list developers whose personal generosity was chronicled in the media alongside their public-spirited munificence.

Yet even after his double bankruptcy, Dunne continues to be discreet about welcoming Nelson Mandela to his Dublin home.

And many of the guests who broke bread with ‘the Dunner’ and one of the world’s best-loved international icons on the morning of July 1, 2003, are just as reticent as their host.

Mr Mandela was accompanied at the small gathering of less than 20 people by another ANC blueblood, Cyril Ramaphosa, who oversaw arms decommissioning in the North.

The breakfast at Dunne’s home on Shrewsbury Road, Dublin’s most expensive thoroughfare, was on the morning before Mandela addressed the opening of the Special Olympics.

DETAILS of this elite gathering came out last week in the wake of Mr Mandela’s funeral but the usual social and political glitterati that attend such events remain unusually reticent. One person who attended confirmed that the then South African Ambassador to Ireland, Melanie Verwoerd, and her husband Wilhelm were among the guests.

But Ms Verwoerd was in South Africa last week and unavailable for comment. And it is understood that the boss of Irish Nationwide Building Society, Michael ‘Fingers’ Fingleton, who attended Dunne’s wedding two years before and financed some of Mr Dunne’s developments, was also at the breakfast.

I was told that Fingleton was abroad and not available for com- ment. I was also told that Dunne was overseas and unavailable.

Back in July 2003, Dunne was dreaming of his €1bn, seven-acre development at the heart of Dublin 4 that would have him renamed the Baron of Ballsbridge.

At that time, Dunne was also developing property in Cape Town and was an ardent admirer of Mr Ramaphosa, who was in Dublin to meet Mr Mandela.

It is thought that Dunne, who had donated so generously to politicians and charities in Ireland, wanted to show his support for, and appreciation of, Ramaphosa.

And it was a ‘nice one, Cyril’ when Ramaphosa turned up at Dunne’s front door in Dublin with Mandela by his side.

Last month, Forbes magazine noted that Ramaphosa, 61, the current vice-president of the ANC, is the 29th richest man in South Africa, with an estimated worth of $700m.

Although it was only 10 years ago, this historic meeting in Dublin between South Africa’s finest and the then cream of Irish business and politics seems to be of another era.