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Chuck Feeney: The billionaire who wasn’t Conor O’Clery remembers the Irish-American philanthropist who gave away more than $8 billion in his lifetime to education, healthcare, ageing and civil society W hen my biography of Chuck Feeney The Billionaire Who Wasn’t , was published in 2006, Bertie Ahern, agreed to launch it in the Ussher Library in Trinity. The then-taoiseach joked that he had a personal reason to honour the Irish American philanthropist. Ten years earlier, he had been strong-armed by Chuck to jointly fund a major educational initiative in Ireland, but he got all the credit from grateful academics because Feeney insisted on remaining anonymous. The publication of the biography then meant that Chuck’s anonymity was fully blown. Several people at the launch expressed astonishment that he had allowed this to happen and asked me how he had come to agree. The process began four years earlier in New York where I was based for the Irish Times . A friend had introduced me to Chuck Feeney. I was told he was a wealthy businessman, but he didn’t act like one. He wore a cheap plastic watch and off-the-peg clothes and walked everywhere rather than ride in a limousine. He began inviting me to lunch, never in a fancy Manhattan restaurant but in PJ Clarke’s Irish bar on 3rd Avenue, where it was always chicken hotpot and a glass of cheap white wine. I reckoned he liked to keep informed about Irish and American politics and sought my company because I could bring him up to date on both counts. Later I came to realise something else was going on. Over time he disclosed to me that he had made a fortune in the duty-free business and had become a major secret philanthropist. I asked would he give me a formal interview. To my surprise he agreed.
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Chuck Feeney pictured (above) with his wife, Helga, and (right) with Conor O’Clery As we sat down with a tape recorder I inquired if he always wore a cheap watch. He pulled up his sleeve to reveal a $15 plastic Casio. ‘I have a spare. I’ll sell it to you,’ he quipped. ‘I couldn’t afford it,’ I replied. Sometime after the interview appeared, I suggested writing his biography, a big ask for a man who was naturally shy and modest. He demurred. Eventually I suggested I would fax him a formal proposal (he never used email). He promised to respond at our next lunch. I wrote in the fax I would find a publisher to finance the book, but in return he would have to release all beneficiaries from their vows of secrecy, let me travel with him on his philanthropic excursions around the world, and give me access to his family, his private correspondence and official papers. He would have no control over the final text. I waited for his response. He called me to meet again for lunch. He never mentioned the proposal. That’s it, I thought. But as we parted on 3rd Avenue I asked, ‘Do you want more time to think about that other thing?’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘let’s do it.’ Only much later did I guess that Chuck had been doing due diligence on me all along. He was seeking an author to write his story as a way of conveying his unique model of giving to the world. Apparently, I would do. But it was not in Chuck’s nature to ask straight out. He waited until I got the message. So, we did it, though it was difficult finding a publisher as no one in the New York book world had heard of Chuck Feeney, or worst still, of me. Chuck was as good as his word, or his three words. He asked his family, friends, business associates and beneficiaries to cooperate. They spoke freely and enthusiastically about Chuck, many with a fondness bordering on love. The hardest person to draw out was Chuck himself. He did not have the gift of introspection. Typically, if I asked why he was giving it all away he would reply simply, ‘It was the right thing to do.’ I concluded that all his instincts, instilled in him by the example of his parents, the sharing culture of blue-collar New Jersey, his desire to stay close to his boyhood friends, and his own innate kindness and concern for others, shaped his decision.
