It took some convincing for New York-based hotelier John Fitzpatrick to take part in the first Irish series of The Secret Millionaire but, as he tells Taragh Loughrey-Grant, it changed his life.
The success of the UK version of The Secret Millionaire prompted an Irish series of the show, in which three wealthy individuals go incognito to help some people in need. In the second episode, hotelier John Fitzpatrick goes undercover in Dundalk as a documentary-maker to find projects there dedicated to keeping kids off the streets, that he and the fund he established in memory of his parents can help. Fresh off a flight from New York, he is eager to talk about the experience.
“I just got off a flight”, says John, “so I’m half awake but sitting here in my sister’s hotel at Killiney Castle. It’s one of the first hotels that my father bought, so it has a lot of meaning to us all, besides being just a business, so it’s all good!”
Watch a clip of John Fitzpatrick as The Secret Millionaire here:
Taragh Loughrey-Grant: Why did you decide to become a Secret Millionaire?
John Fitzpatrick: It was funny how it started because Sarah Colgan from Animo [the show’s production company] called me and at the beginning I said ‘No, absolutely not’, because in this economy and when I heard the title of the show, I said ‘No, I couldn’t do it.’ She was persistent, she came back again and then I got curious so I said ‘Let’s have a meeting.’
Sarah explained the whole thing and asked if I’d seen the shows in England, which I hadn’t, so she gave me a couple of DVDs. It really clicked with me when I went back to New York: way back when my mum passed away I set up this memorial fund in her name. My dad had been very successful but he wouldn’t have been very successful without my mother. I felt when she passed away that people might have forgotten her, so this was my idea of keeping her memory alive.
We do a golf tournament every year and we’ve had huge support from all over, from our customers and our staff, and every year it’s grown. Then when my father passed away we joined him to the memorial [It’s now called the Eithne and Paddy Fitzpatrick Memorial Fund] and now we’ve raised $1.6 million in 15 or 16 years.
A lightbulb went on in my head; maybe this show is a way of promoting the fund. I went back and they said ‘Yes, but it’s about your own money as well’. I said ‘No problem, I’ll put in the money and whatever I put in from the fund, I’ll match personally, which means you’ll get double.’
Watch another clip of John Fitzpatrick in The Secret Millionaire here
Did you have any other doubts?
What was worrying me was, I had to give out this kind of money and I’ve eight days to do it for the TV show, yet I’m not just going to throw money out – I want to make sure they’re worthy causes. I think I got a little uppity too when I was there but they were brilliant and Sarah said: ‘No John, we’ve done our research.’
What happened next?
They came out to New York to film their piece with me and we went out to the hotels [Fitzpatrick’s Manhattan and Grand Central Hotels] and then they said: ‘Now John you need to go out and buy some cheap jeans, hoodies . . .’ I said that I’ve never worn a hoodie in my life; I’m a bit old for wearing hoodies! She said: ‘No . . . and T-shirts!’
The day before I left, I went back and I ended up in The Gap buying all these white T-shirts and hoodies. Yer man was looking at me buying six hoodies and everything else. They asked me to get nearly all the same colour because some days they have to go back and do reshoots.
Anyway, I arrived in Dublin Airport and I said: ‘I’m here now, where are we going? And they still wouldn’t tell me!
At this stage you were in your new hoodie?
Oh yeah, wait ’til you see the show, it’s very funny! I knew we were going north but I still had no idea where I was. I said to one of the producers, ‘C’mon, I’m in the car, I can’t get out now, where are we going?’
Finally, they drive me to my place. All I insisted on was a clean bed, I’ll bring my own towels and you can do what you like after that. Now I got into this place and it was pretty grim but I expected it.
What were the rules?
It was very strict and they said ‘there’s €194’ but they immediately took €100 off me and said ‘That’s your rent for the week and you’re left with €94 and you’ve to live on that.’ I’d already spent some money for my dinner so I was down to €80 or €75.
I went shopping and as I’m a single guy I don’t cook so I picked out a frozen pizza. The flat was grim so I said to myself ‘I have to live here for a week so I have to clean.’ I saw an old mop in the corner and I saw a Spar shop on the corner and I went over and bought Flash. There was a mouse trap in the kitchen and there was mouse droppings so I cleaned the place for an hour and a half.
Then – and this is the best story, this doesn’t come out on the cameras – I turned on the oven for my pizza, and ten minutes later I heard this crash and the door came off the oven. Whoever was renting the flat before me must have broken the door and glued it so the landlord wouldn’t see it and when the heat came on the door fell off. So there’s goes me dinner, and I saw a fish and chip shop out the window. I normally would have the odd fish and chips so I had that and then I had it another day. I found this lovely diner, best diner in Dundalk, its called Roma and they do the best chicken curry for €7.50 so I used to go there. Meanwhile, the crew were dropping me off and going back to the hotel every day and the next morning, I’d say: ‘Did you have a nice breakfast lads?’ ‘Oh yeah we did, we had a buffet, it was all lovely!’ But it was all OK; I was able to survive on it.
What were the high and low points of your experience?
It’s funny; the low point was the very first night I arrived. I was away from the hotel which I’ve never been for so long, they told me I couldn’t carry my phones and I live by these things. My big worry was whether I was going to do the right thing: it takes so much to raise this money.
But by the end, in one way, the low point was leaving. On the last day the crew said, ‘I think we’ll cut this short by half a day, we’ve got it all done.’ And even when they left, I stayed that night and I went around to talk to some of the people I’d met because I didn’t feel good not telling them who I really was and what we were doing.
I felt I got more, or as much out of it as they did. I don’t want to say ‘life-changing’ because that’s a bit over the top but truthfully, I have met some amazing people. It was very humbling. You read the papers about everybody losing this and losing that, it is tough but these guys never saw this Celtic Tiger.
The Irish are very generous and we’re going away to South Africa building houses which I think is fantastic but we should also not forget our own.
Will you keep in touch with some of the people you’ve met?
There’s a lot of stuff that I’m going to do. The TV show is over but I’m going back to help do a lot more stuff. This is now part of the fund; I had a meeting with my committee back in New York afterwards. Whereas before I thought, ‘I’ll do the show, give them the money and it’ll be great to help them’, I never thought that I’d actually go back.
On the night your Secret Millionaire episode airs, what will you be doing?
I don’t want to be in a room looking at meself on television. I’d rather get up to Dundalk, so we’re organising something with all the kids and only the people who were involved. We’re calling it a cast party, we can’t have everybody at it but I just really want to see the kids, seeing themselves on television in a big room, with a big party.
Watch it! The Secret Millionaire, Monday September 26 on RTÉ One.
