Country Living with Francis Farragher

There are times of the night when tiredness begins to creep in and you say to yourself that you’ll watch the first five minutes of a programme that’s starting on the television. As with many things in life, there’s a catch with this. Then you want to see another five or 10 minutes of the programme and almost without noticing, the sleepiness has disappeared and you’re hooked.

It happened to me a couple of weeks back when one of those names from the past – although still very much of this life – Michael Smurfit featured in an RTE so-called documentary.

The setting was the opulence of his private yacht moored peacefully in the opulence of Monaco, a vessel acquired for a virtual snip of €20 million and called the Lady Ann Magee in memory of Michael Smurfit’s late mother.

When looking at programmes like this, one has to be careful not to slip into the world of begrudgery but having reached a stage of life where time and health are more important than having excess cash, this wasn’t a problem.

The programme was billed as a documentary – Michael Smurfit, Succession – but it wasn’t: instead, it was a rather kindly insight into the world of a once billionaire, but who’s now down to his last €350 million. For all that though, still an addictive watch.

Now aged 88-years, and still blessed with good health, the name of Michael Smurfit is one most will associate with a massively successful businessman of the 1970s and 1980s, when most other mortals on our little island were undergoing something of an identity and confidence crisis.

It’s a name associated with cardboard and packaging, a business he inherited from his father, before turning into one of the most successful international enterprises across the globe. The financial crash of the late noughties halved his wealth and took away his billionaire status . . . but still more than enough to survive.

There were too little trinkets to be admired in him most notably his worth ethic which in his younger days involved a 6am to 12 midnight shift while he regretted retiring from business about five years too early at the sprightly age of 72.

Pictured: Life on a super yacht – the Lady Ann Magee – moored in Port Hercule, Monaco Harbour.