Patrick Gallagher (businessman)
Patrick Gallagher (8 May 1951 - 15 March 2006) was an Irish property developer and businessperson. Early life and family Patrick Gallagher was born in Holles Street hospital, Dublin on 8 May 1951. His parents were Matt and Helena Patricia Gallagher (née Sheeran). He had 4 sisters and 2 brothers, Danny, Delia, Maureen, Helen, Paul and Kathryn. As a child, he lived at the family home, Hollywood Rath, Mulhuddart, County Dublin. His father was one of the largest property developers in the country, and as Gallagher's older brother had Down Syndrome, he was in line to succeed his father as the head of his business, the Gallagher Group. Gallagher attended a number of secondary schools including St Gerard's in Bray, County Wicklow, Clongowes Wood College in County Kildare, and Blackrock College in County Dublin. He married Sue Craigie in 1970, and they had two sons, Matthew and Patrick. They lived in Ballymacarney House on the Mulhuddart estate from 1973. Early career At age 17 Gallagher joined the Gallagher Group, starting as a tea boy, before working as a plasterer, plumber and bricklayer. By 1971, he was head of house sales during the wider Irish housing boom. After the sudden death of his father in January 1974, Gallagher became the head of the Gallagher Group at age 22. Along with the main business, he also inherited a stud farm, a shopping centre, a building society, a builder's providers company, and two small banks. He also inherited his father's network of political and business allies, in particular Charles Haughey and John Byrne, who both mentored him in those years immediately after his father's death. As his inheritance was held in trusts on the Cayman Islands it was exempt from estate tax, but the Gallagher Group was not protected. The failure of Gallagher and the business was anticipated, but he saved the business by laying off staff and selling off a large portion of the land his father had accrued. He reconstituted the Gallagher Group board in March 1975, with new, younger board members. Gallagher became known for his high-flying lifestyle in the most exclusive restaurants, bars and nightclubs of Dublin, being driven around by a chauffeur in a Rolls-Royce. He mixed business with leisure, often conducting meetings in hotel bars. In 1977 Gallagher had a cancer scare, but this appeared to fuel his excessive lifestyle. He came under pressure from the Central Bank to divest his two banks, Merchant Banking Ltd and Merchant Banking (Northern Ireland) Ltd, of all their almost exclusive investments in the Gallagher Group. In 1977 he reduced Merchant Banking's activities significantly. While it continued to lend to the Gallagher Group, it also operated from an office in his shopping centre in Donaghmede where it received small deposits from local shoppers. Between 1977 and 1978 Merchant Banking (Northern Ireland) doubled its deposit base to £1.19 million, and it was transferred to the ownership of another Gallagher company in April 1978, removing it from the regulatory oversight of the Central