The family of Ireland’s former richest man eludes publicity

All billionaire families share the trait of unimaginable wealth but very few are constantly in the public eye. Most billionaires deliberately and carefully elude any kind of publicity or media. Privacy is all. Wealth constructs walls both visible and invisible between those who possess it, and the rest of the world.

To anyone outside the business world, the news this week of the death of “Ireland’s richest person”, Pallonji Mistry, came as a surprise. The name of the Indian-born billionaire, who made his €14.2 billion fortune primarily via construction, was unfamiliar to many of the general public. His nickname in his homeland was “the Phantom of Bombay House”, as he was a behind-the-scenes presence at Tata. He was the biggest private shareholder in the company, an Indian multinational conglomerate.

Tata constructed some of India’s most famous modern buildings, including Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Palace and Oberoi Hotel, both of which were attacked by terrorists in 2006.

Mistry was 93 when he died at his home in Mumbai this week. His Irish citizenship came about in 2003 when he gave up his Indian citizenship. He was married to Pat “Patsy” Perin Dubash, who was born in Hatch Street Nursing Home in Dublin in 1939. Like many nursing homes in Ireland until the 1970s, there were ancillary maternity services also on site, which was the case with Hatch Street.

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Scour the internet for an hour or more, and not a scrap of information surfaces as to where the couple met, when they met, when they married, or anything about Dubash’s original family in Ireland, even though Perin Dubash is not the most common of surnames. There is one grainy family portrait, it’s graininess suggestive of being reproduced many times over in different forms. Perin Dubash sits on a buttoned leather armchair, surrounded by her husband and children, who stand behind her.

Dubash is now 82. The couple had four children together, two sons and two daughters: Cyrus, Shapoor, Aloo and Laila. Apparently, all four have Irish passports, to which they are entitled, having an Irish mother. Cyrus was born in 1968, so the couple were together for at least half a century. That’s a long time for the Irish spouse of a billionaire to be out of the public consciousness.

Mistry apparently studied for a time in the Imperial College at London. In their married life, the couple had homes in several countries. In addition to a 929,000sq m home in the centre of Mumbai, where Irish whiskey was apparently in the cocktail cabinet, there were also homes in other part of India as well as Dubai, London and Surrey. Summers were spent in London.

The editor of Business World India, Jehangir Pocha, in an article some years ago, claimed that Mistry also owned “a mansion overlooking a spot where Ireland’s rolling hills sweep down to meet the sea. But like much of his life, little else is known regarding the location of this palatial Irish property, which he is said to frequently visit”.

The description of that property, should it be true, could match many parts of Ireland. The couple definitely had a home in Surrey, where Mistry had a low-key 80th birthday party in 2009. An Evening Standard journalist who dropped into the White Horse pub in the village of Hascome shortly after, while visiting his parents who live there, was astonished to discover that the billionaire had got the pub to cater his party. Mistry’s Surrey house was located close to the village.

The journalist reported that the menu had included roast lamb, a salmon platter and honey-glazed ham. But the real detail was the modesty of the order. The catering order was for 45 guests, many of whom had flown over from India for the occasion, and the cost per head was £60.

Misty’s consistently eschewed publicity; he does not appear to have given any interviews. Neither did Perin Dubash. They were both Parsees: members of the minority, and ancient, Zoroastrian faith, which originated in what was then Persia. The theology emphasises the importance of charity, and the protection of nature. Mumbai has the most significant Parsee population in India. Traditionally, they do not bury or cremate their dead, a practice which they believe contaminates the earth. Instead, they are laid out in the specially-constructed Towers of Silence in Mumbai, where bodies decompose via nature and birds, with bones being gathered later.

In 2006, Mistry and Perin Dubash funded and established a home for older people of the BN Petit Parsee Hospital in Mumbai, which she continues to have an active involvement in.

The Mistry family may be billionaires, but this week, having lost a husband and father, they are the same as anyone who has experienced a similar loss: a grieving family.