JP McManus is an Irish hero — for just 183 days a year

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The billionaire spends most of his time in Switzerland so he does not have to pay tax in Ireland
Colin Coyle
Sunday July 10 2022, 12.01am, The Sunday Times

When Shane Filan of Westlife emerged from bankruptcy nine years ago, it was to JP McManus, the Limerick businessman, that he turned for help.

The singer wanted to buy a €780,000 house in Rosses Point, Co Sligo, but was struggling to secure a mortgage after going bust in the UK while owing €23 million to Irish banks. McManus duly stepped in, providing Filan with a loan to buy the house.

Last week the singer was among the celebrities and golfers to take part in McManus’s pro-am charity event at Adare Manor, the billionaire’s hotel and golf club in Co Limerick where the Ryder Cup will be hosted in 2027. Among those lining up alongside Filan were the golfers Tiger Woods and Bryson DeChambeau and actors Bill Murray and Jamie Dornan.


McManus’s financial support for Filan was never publicised, emerging only after a search of Land Registry papers by The Sunday Times. Supporters of the businessman say that while some of his charitable endeavours are high profile — from offering disadvantaged students €3 million in scholarships to bankrolling the Limerick hurling team — just as many are carried out discreetly. This is what encourages so many people to send begging letters directly to Martinstown, his 633-acre spread in rural Limerick.

Others take a more jaundiced view of the racehorse owner’s munificence. In 2017, after The Sunday Times reported that US court documents showed that McManus had paid no tax in Ireland for two decades, Michael McDowell, a former justice minister, said he had pushed for the introduction of a levy on Ireland’s tax exiles while in office. “The constitution says that ‘fidelity to the nation and loyalty to the state are fundamental political duties of all citizens’”, he noted pointedly.


McManus may be a local hero in Limerick but as a tax resident of Switzerland, where he owns a home near Geneva, he can spend only 183 days a year in Ireland. When he cancelled the 2015 pro-am, McManus blamed changes to tax exile rules by Revenue that meant every night he stayed at his Martinstown home counted for two days in the country.

In 2011 McManus was said to have been annoyed when a journalist asked about his tax status during a University of Limerick event. “I didn’t leave the country in order to avoid paying a tax, or to avoid paying a future tax that was about to come down the line,” he said. “I paid my taxes and I set up a business abroad.”

He argued that he was being criticised for being successful. “If I was somebody who set up a business abroad and it didn’t go so well I’d be considered an emigrant. If it goes well, I’m considered an exile,” he said. “Do they want you to come back and try to support the local economy, try to earn some money abroad and then put it in the local economy? That’s what I like to do.”

Among those to rush to his defence was Willie O’Dea, the Fianna Fail TD. “Not only does he give back in terms of the grants and donations . . . he also contributes hugely to the Irish economy through the economic activity and employment he has created and sustained here [in Limerick],” O’Dea said.

“He has created jobs here directly, over 600 of them, between the Adare Manor hotel and golf course and the Martinstown stud and countless more indirectly as a major owner of National Hunt racehorses.” Would it not be hypocritical for a country that thrives on foreign direct investment not to welcome McManus’s magnaminity, O’Dea asked. “So why single out an Irish person who has built up a thriving business abroad for spending and investing some of that money here?” he added.

Boutiques in Adare benefited from McManus’s largesse last week when it emerged he had given the partners of many of those participating in the golf challenge gift vouchers worth €10,000 to be spent in local shops.

While none of those who participate in the pro-am are paid, not even the professionals, McManus lavishes them with generosity from the time they arrive in Ireland on the 30 private jets he charters.

Some of those who question his motivation whispered “sportswashing” last week. Simon Chadwick, who lectures at Emlyon business school in France on the economy of sport, said that while the phrase was typically associated with regimes, it could be used to describe a rich person who becomes involved in sport to boost their image. “It’s effectively a diversionary tactic,” he said. “Don’t look at this stuff about my tax affairs, look over here.”


Chadwick said McManus’s approach reminded him of Jim Ratcliffe, the British billionaire chairman of chemical giant Ineos, who has invested heavily in sport. Ratcliffe, who moved his tax residence to Monaco in 2020, bought cycling’s Team Sky and Nice football club in France in 2019 before investing in the Mercedes Formula One team. At the time his chemical company’s Middlesbrough plant was being criticised for causing air and water pollution.

“Ratcliffe likes to portray himself as a true British patriot, so criticism of him moving to Monaco to avoid tax would certainly have stung,” Chadwick said.

The Adare pro-am said this weekend that it hoped to raise €50 million for charity this year.

One participant who did not need to arrive by private jet last week was Michael O’Leary, the Ryanair chief, who lives in Co Westmeath. Unlike McManus, O’Leary is tax resident in Ireland. His annual tax bill was once put at €14 million, meaning his tax returns would match the €190 million raised by McManus’s pro-am in about 14 years. Unlike the Limerick man, though, he doesn’t get to choose where the money is spent.