Richard Quirke obituary: Former garda turned millionaire gambling entrepreneur

Born November 28th, 1946

Died October 8th, 2024

Richard Quirke, a former garda turned gambling and entertainment entrepreneur, has died at the age of 77 following a short illness.

Quirke left An Garda Síochána to set up a gambling casino on O’Connell Street, Dublin, in 1976. It would prove to be a highly lucrative career move that made Quirke a very wealthy man. His company, Dublin Pool and Juke Box LTD, which runs Dr Quirkey’s Good Time Emporium casino venues across Dublin, posted a profit after tax of €8.6 million for 2023 and was sitting on accumulated profits of €24.3 million. The last time the Sunday Times produced a Rich List for Ireland it estimated Quirke’s personal fortune at €40 million.

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However, his public profile owed as much to family connections as to his business interests. His son Wesley is married to Rosanna Davison, the former Miss World and daughter of Chris De Burgh, and another son, Andrew, is an actor who created the RTÉ comedy series Damo & Ivor.

Richard and his three sisters grew up in Kennedy Park, a council estate in Thurles. He attended Thurles CBS and, following a brief stint working locally, joined the Garda training college in Templemore. His first posting was in Bray, Co Wicklow.

Speaking at his funeral, his son Andrew said that he used the pretext of discharging his duties to secure a date with a local woman, Jan Stapleton. However, Jan confessed to her sister, Ann, that she had no interest in Quirke and introduced them. Richard and Ann would marry shortly afterwards and remain together until his death.

Quirke’s transition from An Garda Síochána to the casino business was not quite the leap it would first seem. His father, Dan, worked at the Thurles greyhound track, so gambling had been part of the social fabric of his life growing up.

By his own admission, his business style often bordered on sharp practice. But in 1982 he took up transcendental meditation, which he would practice every day for the rest of his life. He credited it with changing his life and claimed it prompted him to take a more enlightened approach to business.

As well as a growing casino business, Quirke made a number of highly successful property deals, including the old Carlton cinema in Dublin.

However, Quirke’s biggest gamble did not pay off. Always proud of his Tipperary roots, he dreamed of building Las Vegas in the much more verdant surroundings of Twomileborris. On October 28th, 2009, a planning application was lodged with North Tipperary County Council for what local Independent TD Michael Lowry described as “the most sophisticated and ambitious project that Ireland has ever seen”.

The Tipperary Venue, as it was known, was certainly ambitious as planning was lodged at a time when the Irish economy was imploding. The proposed €460 million development on an 800-acre site included a casino, hotel, all-weather racing course and replica of the White House.

Quirke very rarely engaged with the media and seldom gave interviews. However, on the morning the planning application was lodged, he convened a press conference in nearby Horse and Jockey with the aim of selling it to the local community.

Inevitably a project of this scale and nature was going to generate a lot of interest, and the briefing was attended by as many journalists as local stakeholders.

Yet, Quirke did not speak and instead handed the floor to Lowry for the hour-long presentation. Not surprisingly, the Independent TD focused on the alleged economic benefits of the project, which he estimated would create 1,000 construction jobs and 2,000 full-time positions when it was up and running.

Quirke spoke briefly to The Irish Times at the conclusion of the press conference. He said he had “considerable monies” and planned to raise additional funding from “foreign investors”. He would not approach Irish banks because “even if they were interested”, he “wouldn’t go near them”. He added that he was certain the project would secure planning permission.

From the outset, the Tipperary Venue faced many challenges, but the most formidable was that the casino, which would have been one of the main revenue-generating arms of the project, was not supported by gambling legislation at the time. Quirke seemed confident the legislation would change. He eventually secured planning permission, but the government did not bow to his will and the proposed casino remained outside what was permitted by law. The project was eventually dropped a decade later.

The Quirke family home was a palatial pad in Cabinteely, south Dublin, which was often used as a location for Damo & Ivor. At his funeral at Foxrock Church, Andrew said: “My dad was as mad as a brush … He came from nothing, worked extremely hard and was one of the most generous people you could ever meet.”

“Dad was a very frugal man but was extremely generous to others. The truth is, 80 per cent of the good deeds he did for family, friends and strangers, other people never even knew about them.”

The funeral was attended by de Burgh and Lowry, among others.

Quirke is survived by his wife, Ann; daughters, Debbie and Renee; sons, Wesley and Andrew; grandchildren, and extended family.