{"id":253885,"date":"2026-01-20T07:59:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T07:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/253885\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T07:59:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T07:59:13","slug":"who-are-irelands-11-billionaires-and-what-are-they-worth-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/253885\/","title":{"rendered":"Who are Ireland\u2019s 11 billionaires and what are they worth? \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The total wealth of Ireland\u2019s billionaires <\/a>stood at $54.4 billion (\u20ac46.3 billion) at the end of last year, up 5 per cent from $51.8 billion over 12 months, according to a new report from Oxfam<\/a>, which bases its list on the influential finance magazine, Forbes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s billionaires are richer than 66 per cent of the population, or 3,468,311 people combined. It takes 7.3 hours for the average Irish billionaire to make the average person\u2019s annual income. The average billionaire could buy 37 tonnes of gold with their wealth.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s list features 11 individuals, but who are they and what are they worth?<\/p>\n

Patrick and John Collison \"StripeStripe was established by Limerick brothers. Patrick and John Collison <\/p>\n

Taking the first two spots on the list are Limerick-born tech moguls Patrick and John Collison, each with an estimated fortune of $10.1 billion, up from $7.2 billion the previous year.<\/p>\n

The brothers founded payments company Stripe in 2010, coming up with a simple way for start-ups to accept online payments with just a few lines of code.<\/p>\n

Since then, the San Francisco and Dublin-headquartered company has developed a range of products that make it easier for companies doing business online. Their first payday came in 2008 when they sold their company, Auctomatic, for more than \u20ac3 million. <\/p>\n

The company last year saw its valuation climb to $106.7 billion, passing its previous peak of $95 billion in 2021.<\/p>\n

Stripe has built an extensive payments infrastructure for companies and handles billions of dollars in transactions each year. In its latest update, the company said businesses generated $1.4 trillion in total payment volume in 2024, up 38 per cent year-on-year.<\/p>\n

John Grayken\"JohnJohn Grayken, founder of Lone Star Funds. <\/p>\n

Third on the list is Boston-born private equity boss John Grayken, who founded Dallas-based firm Lone Star Funds in 1995 before becoming an Irish citizen in 1999.<\/p>\n

Following the 2008 financial crisis, Lone Star was an active buyer of distressed assets in the Republic, snapping up, among other things, a \u20ac650 million portfolio of non-performing commercial property loans from the EBS loan book in 2012.<\/p>\n

The publicity-shy Mr Grayken, who resides in London, is valued at $7.3 billion, up from $6.9 billion the previous year.<\/p>\n

The Mistry family\"ShapoorShapoor Mistry (right). <\/p>\n

Down to fourth place from the top of last year\u2019s list is Shapoor Mistry, the owner of Indian construction and engineering giant Shapoorji Palonji. He inherited control of the 160-year-old group from his father, Palonji Mistry, who died as an Irish citizen in 2022, aged 93.<\/p>\n

Like his father, Shapoor Mistry is a low-key figure. He shares his fortune with the family of his late brother, Cyrus Mistry, who also died in 2022. He is valued at $7.1 billion, down from $9.9 billion the previous year.<\/p>\n

The Mistry family owns an 18.4 per cent stake in Tata Sons, a holding company in the $165 billion revenue Indian conglomerate Tata Group, which includes, among other things, steel producers, chemical manufacturers and hospitality businesses.<\/p>\n

Cyrus Mistry\u2019s sons Zahan ($3.6 billion) and Firoz Mistry ($3.5 billion), who hold shares in Mumbai-based Tata Motors, were listed as the fifth and sixth wealthiest Irish citizens last year. Their wealth increased from $3.1 billion and $3 billion respectively.<\/p>\n

John Dorrance\"JohnJohn Dorrance in 2002. <\/p>\n

An heir to the Campbell\u2019s Soup empire, American-born billionaire John Dorrance emigrated to Ireland in the mid-1990s, swapping a ranch in Wyoming for Dublin.<\/p>\n

That was around the same time he sold his stake in the company his grandfather helped build: he invented the formula for Campbell\u2019s condensed soup. The move is estimated to have netted him about $720 million.<\/p>\n

He was granted Irish citizenship in 1995 and is a regular name on the Forbes rich lists. Mr Dorrance is seventh on the list and worth $3.2 billion, up from $2.6 billion the year before.<\/p>\n

Denis O\u2019Brien\"MichaelMichael Lowry and Denis O’Brien toasting the success of Esat Digifone. Photograph: Eric Luke <\/p>\n

Telco businessman Denis O\u2019Brien is ranked eighth with an estimated worth of $3.1 billion, up from $2.8 billion. Mr O\u2019Brien first hit the headlines in 1995 when Esat won the State\u2019s second mobile phone licence, in a surprise result of the competition.<\/p>\n

The Moriarty tribunal later found that Michael Lowry, as minister for communications at the time, had \u201csecured the winning\u201d of the competition for the mobile licence for Esat. Mr O\u2019Brien has consistently denied any wrongdoing. <\/p>\n

By 2000, he had sold out of Esat, earning him personally about \u20ac292 million.<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Brien later attempted to recreate his former success in the Caribbean with Digicel. The business propelled him to billionaire status; between 2007 and 2015, he received at least $1.9 billion in Digicel dividends.<\/p>\n

But Digicel became hugely indebted, which eventually led to a restructuring deal in 2023 that wrote off $1.7 billion from Digicel\u2019s debt, leaving Mr O\u2019Brien with 10 per cent of the business.<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Brien\u2019s interests previously extended to media, establishing Communicorp, which owned radio stations around Europe, and building up a shareholding in Independent News & Media (INM).<\/p>\n

He sold his stake in the latter to Mediahuis for a reported \u20ac43.5 million in 2019 and Communicorp to Bauer Media Audio in 2021. <\/p>\n

Eugene Murtagh\"EugeneEugene Murtagh, founder of Kingspan Group. Photograph: Cyril Byrne <\/p>\n

Coming in ninth is Eugene Murtagh, who founded building materials manufacturer Kingspan Group in 1965. He owns about 15 per cent of the Dublin- and London-listed company, which primarily sells insulation products for commercial and industrial projects.<\/p>\n

The Cavan-based company would go on to float on the Irish Stock Exchange with a value of \u00a320 million, later expanding to a global business with a series of acquisitions that included CRH\u2019s European insulation business and ThyssenKrupp Steel\u2019s construction division.<\/p>\n

Kingspan has 212 manufacturing facilities in 80 countries, and generated revenue of more than $8.6 billion in 2024. <\/p>\n

Mr Murtagh stayed at the helm until 2005, when he was succeeded as chief executive of the company by his son Gene, and stayed on as chairman and non-executive director until 2021. He is estimated to be worth $2.6 billion, down from $2.8 billion.<\/p>\n

Dermot Desmond\"DermotDermot Desmond at a Celtic match. Photograph: Andrew Milligan\/PA <\/p>\n

Cork-born financier Dermot Desmond, who is 10th, started out in banking before striking out on his own. In 1981, he founded independent brokerage NCB Stockbrokers, which he sold for $39 million in 1994 and started private equity firm International Investment & Underwriting.<\/p>\n

The investment company has stakes in travel software firm Datalex, Mountain Province Diamonds, Barchester Healthcare, and Glasgow soccer club Celtic.<\/p>\n

Mr Desmond was later part of a consortium that bought Baltimore Technologies, and invested in everything from hotels \u2013 Sandy Lane in Barbados \u2013 to gaming, with Betdaq, a business that was later sold to Ladbrokes.<\/p>\n

He has also invested in London City Airport, a risky venture at the time, but one that proved profitable when he sold it for a reported \u00a3750 million in 2006. He is now worth about $2.3 billion, up from $2.2 billion.<\/p>\n

John Armitage\"JohnJohn Armitage, co-founder of Egerton Capital. Photograph: Geoff Caddick\/PA <\/p>\n

Closing out the list is British-born John Armitage, the chief investment officer and co-founder of Egerton Capital, who began his career in 1981 at Morgan Grenfell Asset Management, ascending the ranks and becoming a director in 1991.<\/p>\n

He established Egerton in 1994 with Irish-American financier William Bollinger, and is now worth an estimated $1.5 billion, unchanged from the previous year, chiefly due to the investment company, which has generated tens of billions in profit since it was founded.<\/p>\n

The Eton-educated investor became an Irish citizen in 2018, perhaps in response to Britain\u2019s impending exit from the European Union. Mr Armitage opposed the move, donating what was described as a \u201csignificant sum\u201d to the campaign to keep Britain in the European bloc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The total wealth of Ireland\u2019s billionaires stood at $54.4 billion (\u20ac46.3 billion) at the end of last year,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,7517,16609,45390,61,60,126809,31268,126808,126806,18015,126807],"class_list":["post-253885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-denis-obrien","tag-dermot-desmond","tag-eugene-murtagh","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-john-armitage","tag-john-collison","tag-john-dorrance","tag-john-grayken","tag-patrick-collison","tag-shapoor-mistry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}