Irish America stands up for Denis O’Brien and applauds loudly -- Ireland’s top businessman and philanthropist wows New York crowd

Irish media mogul and philanthropist Denis O'Brien (Photo: Forbes)

Denis O’Brien is Ireland’s equivalent of Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish emigrant who made billions and gave it all away in the final decades of his life.

Though he roamed and prospered far and wide, Carnegie never forgot the millions in need in his own country or anywhere else he operated.

O’Brien has made his billions through his telephone company Digicel which has provided cell phone service to millions of the world's poor.

He has also given back in the countless millions to those countries where he has prospered.

His next assignment will be Burma, he says, or Myanmar if you prefer. It is a country with a population of 63 million, where only two million have cell phones, which has recently opened up to outsiders.

Writing in Time Magazine recently, Bill Clinton rated O’Brien’s work in making financial transactions possible by cell phone as the single most important development in 2012 in helping the poor worldwide.

Impressive.

He has personally given $16.5 million to Haiti in an attempt to help get that country back on its feet.

Of course O’Brien earns a handsome buck, but he gives back. His work on behalf of the destitute in Haiti and elsewhere has won him international acclaim. He is a huge backer of Concern, the Third World agency that has inspired a new generation of Irish to volunteer in the Third World.

Read More: Business 100 Honorees and Keynote Denis O’Brien Celebrated in New York

That is why I was immensely proud to honor him yesterday in New York before a packed audience at the Irish America Magazine Annual Business 100 in New York.

We had never honored a non-American before with our premier business award but both editor Patricia Harty and I felt O’Brien deserved to be the first

Good men like O’Brien are rare as hen’s teeth and like all good men he has drawn ferocious critics as well -- mostly in Ireland.

That is not unusual. "Great hatred, little room" as Yeats wrote and O’Brien’s success began in the Wild West era of capitalism in Ireland when there were few established rules.

O’Brien was perfect for that era, a buccaneer capitalist with no special family ties to the notorious insider world of Irish business.

He emerged with the country’s first cell phone license and turned it into pure gold and some have never forgiven him for upsetting the cozy coterie.

How he got it still exercises some of the chatterati in Ireland.

I think it is time Irish America took a stance on this good and decent man and gave him the respect and acknowledgement he deserves as the pre-eminent Irish businessman and philanthropist of his era.

He is a man who has done enormous good on behalf of so many and will continue to do so. He has raised the Irish banner high and proud wherever he lands in the world. He has reached out to Irish America and is a major supporter of immigration reform.

That is the extraordinary legacy, even if he is sometimes a prophet unheard in his own land.

Over here we hear him – loud and clear. Our message is clear too -- Irish patriots working for the betterment of Ireland, Irish America, and the world, are always welcome.

Because that has always been the way. He is this generation’s Chuck Feeney doing good by doing his best and the packed venue yesterday rising to give him a standing ovation after his remarks recognizes that above all.

Ain’t that America folks.

Denis O’Brien, a billionaire with a mission not just to make money-- Irish businessman praised by Clinton, NY Times, seeks to make a difference

Denis O'Brien (Credit: Forbes)

The O’Reilly family’s stranglehold on most of Irish journalism is over and that can only be good.

I’m delighted that businessman Denis O’Brien, much admired here in America, is taking over effectively as the chief shareholder of Ireland’s largest newspaper group, Independent News and Media.

I know O’Brien and consider him as one of the great business talents to emerge from Ireland in the past half century.

He is a straight talker, and is one of the few who avoided the calamity of believing their own propaganda, that they walked on water, based on nothing more than a property bubble and a backslapping media.

I remember discussing the issue of the plight of the Irish undocumented with him a few years back and he cast his mind back to the time he lived in the US as a penniless student and the problems he encountered then.

He asked what he could do to help on the Irish undocumented and he has done so ever since.

He chaired the 2003 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Ireland. It was the first time the Summer Games were staged outside the US with teams from 160 countries and over 30,000 volunteers. The 2003 Summer Games were the most successful in the history of the Special Olympics.

He also remains very active in Concern where he serves on the board of the international charity.

Denis O’Brien will bring a very different set of values to the newspaper world in my opinion.

He is a creator not a destroyer, who has pumped tens of millions of his own funds into Haiti and other impoverished countries where his company Digicel does business.

As The New York Times recently reported, he built 50 new schools in Haiti since the massive earthquake and has plans for 80 more. He is not involved in such work just for the photo-op, a fact he made clear to the Times.

“It’s all about project management,” Mr. O’Brien (53) said in an interview at Digicel’s offices there.  “Everyone’s on hand for the photo op, but where are the 100 houses that were promised after the
cameras are gone? I’m the guy who’s going to count them.”

Bill Clinton is another person deeply appreciative of what O’Brien has done in Haiti

“What is striking is how deeply he has embedded his Haiti work into both his business and personal life,” Clinton told the New York Times.

“Because he cares so much, it’s easier for him to motivate and hold accountable other network members.”

Back home in Ireland, as he’s a big fish in a small pond, O’Brien causes controversy because he is outspoken and direct.

He first came to prominence when he acquired the second Irish cell phone license in controversial fashion. It was a time when a Wild West atmosphere prevailed in Ireland with unregulated political and financial dealing.

O’Brien saw his chance and he took it. He turned the license into a hugely successful venture, unlike those who ended up with Eircom, the main mobile license, and bankrupted it.

O’Brien sold ESAT Digicel for $3 billion and created thousands of jobs since. O’Brien has used his money wisely. He has exercised major philanthropy and injected funds into University College Dublin and other campuses.

Many crocodile tears are being shed this past week over the issue of media monopoly because he also owns radio stations.

Yet when Sir Anthony O’Reilly owned the Irish Independent, the Sunday Independent, the Sunday World, the Evening Herald, the Irish Daily Star, the Belfast Telegraph and Sunday Life, 13 local newspapers and also one of the largest newspaper and magazine distribution agencies, Newspread, and several of the largest print works on the island, those same critics hardly offered a bleat of criticism.

O’Brien has his critics and his drawbacks but he is a fundamentally decent man, trying to do good.

On that I’d bet my bottom dollar.