On his father

MR Lowry’s father was a publican in Dublin and Mullingar who then bought a farm in Holycross, Co. Tipperary. His father died in 1971 when Michael was 18. He was the fourth of seven children.

‘My dad was a Fianna Fáil supporter, like many rural families it was kind of a divided house. My mother was of a Fine Gael background,’ he said.

‘We wouldn’t have come from a wealthy background and when my dad died it was a case of survival.

‘That helped me and honed me in learning how to be self-sufficient from an early age, and learning to understand that you only had what you earned.’