Chris McGale, Bestselling Author & Founder of Tyrone Capital Partners Ltd
Chris McGale is the author of the best selling memoir The Million Dollar Irishman – From John Street to Wall Street.
Chris is the Founder and Managing Director of Tyrone Capital Partners Ltd. His career includes the position of Managing Director & Country Manager of Merrill Lynch, Ireland.
Chris now lives in London with his wife and four teenage children, but he grew up with ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland.
“I described as my George Best moment, I went on sabbatical from Merrill and never went back. I had burnt out, doing too much of what I called 'the too muches,' a never-ending cycle of long days, late nights, booze, gambling, and a need to win in my City job. I had become the person I never wanted to be – even I didn't like me.”
Chris McGale
Chris McGale shared with The Global Interview an opportunity to understand his life and the personal experiences that have shaped him.
"I will give a brief background to my business career, but for the most part, my answers will relate to my attempts to 'make happen' my memoir, The Million Dollar Irishman – From John Street to Wall Street.
I began writing my memoir in 2002 after I had departed Merrill Lynch & Co Inc and left behind an annual revenue line of $28m. My final titles at Merrill were Managing Director, Global Markets & Investment Banking ($1m salary and top 5% of the firm), and Country Manager, Ireland.
In what I described as my George Best moment, I went on sabbatical from Merrill and never went back. I had burnt out, doing too much of what I called 'the too muches,' a never-ending cycle of long days, late nights, booze, gambling, and a need to win in my City job. I had become the person I never wanted to be – even I didn't like me.
I left behind the million-dollar salary and retired to a darkened room to write my life story; central to this was my near-death road traffic accident fourteen years before, when my ascent through the ranks of the Ulster Investment Bank was stalled for a year.
The story was called The Humpty Dumpty Man (THDM), a name given to me by the lead-surgeon of five that operated on me for five hours. That memoir referenced losing my father at three, being orphaned at twelve, and growing up with the Northern Ireland Troubles. It included the journey of going back to school at eighteen, and making my way to Queen's University, Deloitte, Ulster Investment Bank, Smith New Court and ultimately Merrill Lynch.
The first three drafts of the THDM memoir were largely absent of any mention of my next-by-age sibling, Paul. That was because I blamed him for inflicting on me the feral life that I lived from the time after our mother's death when I was twelve and he would soon be fourteen, until I returned to school at Omagh Technical College six years later.
A year before that, we angrily resided bedside-by-bedside for several months whilst recovering from Tuberculosis at a Belfast sanitorium, before I went back to school and Paul entered his first alcohol treatment centre.
When in 2001, my wife Niamh and I had our first child, Kate McGale, our Mum's name, I received a hand-made card from Paul offering congratulations. By then, he had moved to Scotland with a nurse he met at an alcohol treatment centre, had married, and graduated via the Open University. He had made his way from a storeman's job through teacher-training at Glasgow sink-schools, and to the job as a lecturer of Chemistry, at St David's High School, Dalkeith, Edinburgh.
I was surprised to receive the card and was initially reticent about embracing the goodwill, as we had mainly been estranged in the twenty years before. Neither had invited the other to our weddings.
When we met in Dublin for the All-Ireland Football Final, 2003, when I had supplied tickets for him and his wife for the game between our beloved Tyrone and Armagh, the feelings of bad blood quickly evaporated. Blood is always thicker than water, we learned.
Two years later, while at home for a family wedding, I bumped into him at an Omagh pub next to. There he told me he had split from his wife and had gone back on the booze after eighteen years of sobriety. "Will you be my next-of-kin?" he said.
A few months later, he sent a text message, 'HELP ME.' I travelled to Edinburgh from London and took him home to Omagh, where he stayed for a time at two of our sisters' homes. But he returned to Edinburgh and the booze, and in November 2005 fell heavily while drunk. The police contacted me, and I found him in ICU at the Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, in an induced coma with a steel spike inserted into the top of his head to relieve pressure from his brain.
Less than two years later, Paul died from a brain haemorrhage, sober and alone at his Edinburgh flat. "Give me a hug, brother," he said when I last saw him with my sisters on John Street, on Good Friday, 2007."
What inspires you, motivates you to make each day count?
Having completed and published my memoir, I am currently motivated to delve further into my broken relationship with Paul that lasted for nearly two decades.
I blamed him for my dreadful life before I went back to school before my eighteenth birthday. I can now see that what had happened to the thirteen-year-old boy at Omagh CBS Grammar School would result in criminal charges for the abuser today.
Then they got rid of him. They 'terminated his scholarship' just after his fourteenth birthday. They addressed the termination letter to The Guardian of Paul McGale. They didn't know who that was. I went from first in class to last in a year, and Paul was smarter than me.
Today I can see it even more clearly as I have a super-smart thirteen-year-old son, with Paul's height and both our brains.
Paul McGale (Tallest boy in the middle).
Looking at photographs from Omagh CBS Primary School, Paul was the tallest, most confident of the 30-boy group, and I know the brightest of them all. Then our mother died (after two years with terminal cancer), and the CBS destroyed my brother. At eighteen, I left the £20-a-week job at the kitchen factory and went back to school. At eighteen, Paul entered his first alcohol treatment centre. I got to Queens University, Belfast, he met a nurse at an addiction clinic, got sober, and went to Scotland with her, where he worked as a storeman.
From there, he studied via the Open University and became a high school lecturer. After eighteen years of sobriety, he went back on the booze and died.
As I explain in the book, I had conditioned myself to see grief as a form of self-pity, but his death broke my defences, and broke my heart.
What have you learned from the experiences that you described above?
Since the first Lockdown, I have been afforded the opportunity to complete my memoir.
I had begun the final book in 2014 after flashbacks at the scene of my near-death car crash and from that point intended to finish the story with Paul's death.
Just getting the words down on paper after nearly twenty years of writing was cathartic, a process that continues today as I examine how my brother was destroyed at such a young age. I suffered too - but nowhere near as much as him. I have learned to keep searching for the answers and learned that 'you will find peace with the truth'.
Reconciliation with Paul is the best thing I have done in my life, and I am blessed to have found the peace that the reconciliation has brought.
About the Book - The Million Dollar Irish Man
Chris McGale lived a life of 'fight or flight' and always chose to fight. His memoir tells of a remarkable journey from being a bookies-runner at his family's Irish pub, to mega-stakes gambling and onto a dazzling City career with the Wall Street giant Merrill Lynch. Along the way, he nearly died in a collision with a lorry, and his fundraising for the Omagh Bomb victims led to a nomination for the New Year's Honours List. The story also traces the emotional conflict, return to education, and reconciliation between the author and his fellow-orphan sibling, Paul. Then at the height of his City career, The Million Dollar Irishman went on sabbatical and never went back. This is his life story.
Reviews of The Million Dollar Irish Man
A truly incredible piece of writing, Chris’ journey from John street to Wall Street is one that is certain to captivate and intrigue you. The Million Dollar Irishman tells the incredible tale of a man that defied the odds and survived the setbacks to become one of the most successful men in the industry. The author offers a very honest insight into the world of investment, detailing the highs and the lows, as well as his reasons for leaving the lucrative lifestyle behind him. A must-read book!
A fascinating insight into the life of a man growing up quickly in a small Northern Ireland town during the troubles and moving to London working for a prominent Wall Street firm. Thrown into this, there are battles with gambling, a life-changing accident and the worst single atrocity in the history of the troubles in NI. Life is certainly not straight forward in this insight into a Million Dollar Investor. Really intriguing, a must-read!