Now that I’m 84, I’ve long since given up public speaking.
But when two Irishmen came to call at my Brisbane home I foolishly let them in … to explain that I no longer gave after-dinner speeches.
Next thing I knew I was on stage in Brisbane’s City Hall in the massive circular auditorium which was inspired by Rome’s Pantheon – beneath a 100-foot diameter dome.
This pillarless hall is so big that in the 1950s locals called it “the two-acre paddock”. (That’s about a hectare today.)
I was guest speaker at the Queensland Irish Association’s St Patrick’s Day Eve dinner.
The Vietnamese always complained that their country was “too short of fortune-tellers”. Australia is too short of after-dinner speakers.
My persuasive visitors, if not actually born in Ireland, loved their Irish heritage so much they’d become Irish Association officials.
Jeffrey and Hoges had allotted me nine minutes to propose the Toast to Australia. Nobody – not even the loquacious pair – had asked what I would talk about.
That was a good thing from my point of view – no one in that full auditorium had any idea either.
Best to surprise.
While we all dined on steak and potato with parsnip, mushroom, and asparagus, a pretty young woman leant over me from behind and asked in an Irish accent what I was going to talk about?
I said she would very soon find out.
“Will you have plenty of jokes?” she asked.
That depended on what people found funny.
“Then I hope you are going to say something about Ireland?”
To keep her happy I blithely said, “Michael Collins gets a mention” – not realizing what effect the name of that Irish patriot would have. The young woman squealed “MICHAEL COLLINS!” into my deaf left ear and wrapped her arms round me in a huge hug … which doesn’t happen to me very often, these days.
Everyone nearby looked up from their plate – including Governor Jeannette Young, who was seated opposite, and the Speaker of the federal House of Representatives, Milton Dick (on my left), who raised one of his impressive eyebrows … as he so often does in Parliament.
Milton and I had already bonded over the wine, or lack thereof.
Three times, waiters had approached and asked did we want a red wine in our empty glasses – but no wine had appeared.
Because I was about to propose the Toast, I looked desperately around … and spied an opened bottle of red on the table directly in front of the Queensland Governor.
There was no time for fancy etiquette now. Ignoring protocol, I leant across and snatched it.
“Good idea,” said Milton holding up his empty glass.
Milton then issued a friendly warning not to use the nearest timber steps to the stage because he’d found them “rickety” when he’d given his speech, following the Governor’s.
Being an Irish celebration, of course the night was not given over completely to speeches. There was music, singing, dancing. A troubadour, Tom Kimmet, brought his guitar and his haunting voice to the best version you’ll ever hear of “Fields of Athenry”.
With song sheets for community singing in every hand, we joined in for all of them, from Soldier’s Song to God Save Ireland … “High upon the gallows tree, Swung the noble-hearted three…”
From across the table, one lyrical voice cut through to my good ear.
It was the voice of Jeffrey, one of my two visitors: Association President, the Honourable Justice Spender KC.
I realised how much Australia had changed since my days at Mary Immaculate Convent in the 1950s fighting State School Kids in the street, when Grace was said by the Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane, the Most Reverend Jeremy Greaves.
This was truly an ecumenical occasion.
The girl I’d carried a torch for in the early 1960s beckoned me to her side. It was Sallyanne Kerr (now Atkinson) looking her usual stylish self in a luminescent emerald-green dress, draped – as if to capture the spirit of the times – with an orange scarf.
She introduced me to His Grace, saying, “Jeremy is a convert from Catholic to Anglican!” Which to me was a sort of miracle, especially since Sallyanne was herself a convert, but from Anglican to Catholic.
Like a Doubting Thomas, I looked at His Grace for confirmation – and he nodded saying: “I went to a Catholic school in South Australia.”
And the night was still young!
Our official table had been led in by a contingent of Irish bagpipers who then took to the stage in a physical, colourful performance, joined by the most spectacular sequined, leaping, bouncing, kicking Irish dancers I’ve ever seen.
They filled the stage: this Brisbane Riverdance was a hard act to follow. But now it was my turn to perform.
Holding my glass of red, I entered Stage Right and began:
Toast to Australia
Rarely do we stop to appreciate living in Australia.
So sometimes we need an outsider to tell us what an inimitable place this country is.
Even better if that outsider is an Irishman.
I’m talking about that great philanthropist Chuck Feeney – the man who brought peace to Ireland – who, though born in New Jersey insisted he was Irish. Thus he asked to be buried in Ireland ... and Chuck now rests in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, diagonally opposite Michael Collins.
The media tell us that Chuck Feeney invented “Giving-While-Living” – which Bill Gates and Warren Buffet both adopted after asking to meet him.
But Chuck – who had an Irish sense of humour – told me he coined a different name: he said he was giving away his eight billion US dollars “on the RAT Theory”.
What’s the RAT Theory?
Chuck replied: Remaining Allocated Time.
He guessed he’d be gone by 85. “I don’t need the money … it would be very hard for anyone to spend even ONE billion dollars meaningfully in a lifetime.”
Particularly the way Chuck Feeney lived.
A man with pale blue eyes and a thick head of hair, Chuck Feeney always flew economy class, owned just one suit, always wore a cardigan and sandshoes, always carried his documents in a white plastic shopping bag … and wore a $4 watch.
Chuck said: “If I save 5 bucks, that can save someone’s sight.
Chuck and his wife Helga arrived in Brisbane for the first time on May 7, 1992.
He came here because my best mate, Kenny Fletcher – a St Laurence’s Old Boy – was friends with him in Hong Kong back in 1968.
Before Chuck made his fortune.
In 1968 Chuck had just one duty free shop in Kowloon – but ended up with a chain of 100s around the world.
Chuck thought the young Aussie tennis player had what he called “a congenial aura about him”. (He was also impressed that Fletch was helping out at the Jesuit orphanage.)
The two Hong Kong mates didn’t meet again until 20 years later in London in 1990.
Fletch, a five times Wimbledon doubles champion in amateur days, was now a bankrupt … and Chuck Feeney, father of five, was a multi-billionaire.
But Chuck wasn’t the type to judge a mate harshly.
He told Ken: “Don’t worry about it … the difference between a billionaire and a bankrupt is about a day!”
“But I’m coaching housewives, Chuck. That’s something I was always afraid I’d end up doing,” Fletch confessed.
Chuck replied: “Ken, the Greats are remembered for what they were. Not for what they are.”
So he hired Fletch.
He liked having Ken around because, being an Australian, Fletch said things straight. He’d say to Chuck, “You’ve got too many bloody shiny suits working for you.”
Two years later, Chuck confided to Fletch that he’d decided to give all of his money away to medicine and science – and Ken typically replied: “You’d better give some in Brisbane, well!”
Chuck had never done business in Australia, so, aged 60, he and Helga and Fletch flew here.
When Chuck arrived he told me he liked Brisbane the first time he saw it out the window of the aeroplane. But he didn’t like it when an immigration official asked him: “Mr Feeney, do you have a criminal record?”
Chuck answered: “I didn’t know that was still necessary!”
He said they descended on his luggage and “picked through everything”.
Because Chuck and Fletch didn’t wear suits or ties, people at first ran a mile whenever the pair said they wanted to give away tens of millions of dollars.
They thought these two were con men.
Fletch hadn’t lived in Australia for 30 years and Chuck … well, Chuck had always donated money anonymously and NEVER had his photo taken … so no one knew who he was.
One day I asked Chuck why no photos? He replied: “Someone once described me as a cross between Arnold Schwarzenegger and John Wayne … and I don’t want to disappoint them.”
(His real reason was Chuck had 5 children and was worried about kidnappers.)
Because he flew constantly around the world, Chuck could even distinguish between Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese on a plane. He said the only groups he had trouble telling apart were Irish and Australian.
Chuck spoke Japanese, French, German, and some Korean, so he felt his inability to speak ’Straian was holding him back.
When people said to him every time he wrote another cheque for $20 million “Goodonya” … Chuck didn’t realise he was being praised.
He asked me: “Why do people shout in a pub when they’re not saying anything?”
When he asked Ken what stonkered meant, Fletch replied, “You know Chuck … it means you’re rooted, you know stuffed, you know buggered…”
“Hold on Ken,” Chuck said, “I’m taking notes.”
He asked what Vegemite meant … so my wife Helen served him some on hot buttered toast. Chuck’s response was:
“Don’t tell me why it smells … tell me why it sells!”
Chuck and I were watching the TV News one night.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had arrived back from Bangkok with a bad cold and told reporters: “I’ve got the dreaded lurgy.”
Chuck swung around and said: “Why’s the Prime Minister of Australia announcing to the entire country that he’s got the clap?”
Chuck loved our Aussie lingo so much that he started using words like “hoon” and phrases like “he’s trying to skin you”, and “don’t get them off-side”.
But most of all Chuck loved the word “rort”.
Especially with Ken’s important qualification: “In Australia, Chuck, it’s only a rort if you’re not in on it!”
Chuck never owned a car, because he said “they’re not a good deal, dollar-wise”.
So he caught cabs everywhere he went.
In Brisbane he’d catch taxis around the CBD from his office at the bottom of Edward Street, but some drivers refused to take him just a few blocks. So Fletch advised: “Just tell them you’ve got a crook leg.”
“What does that mean?” Chuck asked.
Which exasperated Ken.
“Don’t worry about it, just bloody say it!”
Chuck couldn’t believe it when it worked a treat.
To force governments to invest in science and medicine, Chuck would mostly offer to put in one-third of a project’s worth … on condition government put in two-thirds. That way he multiplied his money by three.
At first, local politicians said: “We don’t work that way Mr Feeney”. But, as Chuck predicted, they couldn’t resist his money.
In this way, Chuck built a dozen scientific institutes in Australia, which caused cynical me to ask if he was confident our scientists were up to the job?
His instant reply was:
“Oh yeah, the brainpower in Australia is immense!”
The last thing Chuck built here was a “Translational Research Centre” at the PA Hospital. He told PM Kevin Rudd that he would put up $100 million if the $300 million Centre was built.
Like me, Rudd asked: “What’s a Translational Research Centre?”
Chuck said it had scientists inventing new drugs at one end of the building; manufacturing in the middle; and the salesforce at the other end. “That way you get 100% for any drug you invent. Not seven percent.”
(When it was completed, Professor Ian Frazer, the Queensland inventor of the Gardasil vaccine for cancer, was put in charge.)
Chuck left Brisbane for the last time in 2012 — twenty years after he first arrived — having donated more than $550 million to science and medicine in Australia, most of it in Queensland.
Though he was never well enough to return, Chuck kept his home at Kangaroo Point until he died in 2023 aged 92 … his fortune long since gone.
Every March 17, if he and Helga were in Brisbane, they would put on what Chuck called a “Chinese St Patrick’s Day Dinner” at a Chinese restaurant. In the year 2000 I pocketed the menu which Chuck had especially printed for the eight of us. The cover was a cartoon of a comical Irish character who had a full head of hair, carried a balloon, was absolutely covered in shamrocks, and looked ready to tell a joke.
I think this was how Chuck Feeney saw himself. Someone who tried to make others happy.
Chuck’s menu listed meals with invented Irish-Chinese names: Irish Dumplings; Spicy Prawns, Dublin Bay Style; Wicklow-Szechun Lamb; Lemon Chicken Cork style.
For drinks the only choice was “Australian Holy Water” … which everyone took to mean Chuck’s favourite dry Chardonnay.
Around the world beneficiaries tried their best to acknowledge the reclusive Chuck.
Nine Irish universities each presented Chuck with a doctorate at the one ceremony because he would only attend once – yet he had given them a total of a thousand million pounds. His Brisbane friends then started calling him “Doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor Feeney”.
After peace was declared in Ireland, New York’s police chief Ray Kelly arranged a police escort for Chuck and his family through barricaded New York streets to a dinner where Kelly stood up and said: “I’m here to express thanks to a man who has done so much for the Irish, and for Ireland.”
But Chuck said the nicest thing that was done for him was in Brisbane.
Late one night he hopped in a cab home from his office to Dockside. When they pulled up, Chuck fumbled in his pockets for the coins while asking the fare.
Chuck proudly told us the Aussie cabbie said: “That will cost you … precisely nothing. I know who you are. Thank you.”
Just beautiful Hugh. On a.very crowded commuter train into Brisbane, laughing and nodding at speaking “Stralian”. My fellow passengers are a bit scared of me thanks to your brilliant storytelling. Shine on! Love to you and Helen - Catherine
Not all omments come to the comment section. A woman with a PHD! sent the following:
Hi Hugh,
This tale was such a total delight to read Hugh, I had to read it again straight away.
Thank you
.