Catherine O'Brien 'was top class', says businessman who had narrow escape from fraudster
Ann Murphy of the Irish Examiner speaking to Denis English about his encounter with Catherine O'Brien at the Marlfield House Apartments, Clonmel, Co Tipperary. Picture: Dan Linehan
If the walls of Knocklofty House near Clonmel could talk, the Tipperary mansion would have some tales to tell.
Thrust into the national spotlight in the 1970s when an IRA gang kidnapped the house’s inhabitants in 1974, it is now in a state of disrepair and has been the subject of concerns raised locally and also in the Dáil chamber about its condition.
The house is a 17-bedroom sprawling building nestled into an impressive estate 9km west of Clonmel. It was the seat of the Earl of Donoughmore since 1790, being the home of the Hely-Hutchinson family. The property became headline news when Lord and Lady Donoughmore were kidnapped in 1974, before being released four days later in the Phoenix Park. The IRA gang who kidnapped the couple had hoped to influence British policy on Northern Ireland by kidnapping the couple.
Another historic element of the property’s history is that the land on which it is built was given to the Hutchinson family by the notorious Oliver Cromwell.
Their home is currently on Tipperary County Council's Record of Protected Structures but is now in a state of disrepair.
Earlier this year, the Minister of State for Heritage and Electoral Reform, Malcolm Noonan, announced a grant allocation of €10,000 for works on mitigation of damp at Knocklofty House as part of the Built Heritage Investment Scheme 2022.
Lord and Lady Donoughmore sold the property less than a decade after the kidnapping and it was operated as a hotel. In 1994, Tipperary native Denis English bought the property and he also owned the nearby Marlfield House.
Both properties are household names way beyond Clonmel — and both caught the attention of Catherine O’Brien, after it emerged that Denis English was in financial difficulties. These difficulties received press coverage, including coverage of attempts to sell the properties.
Marlfield House, where Denis still lives, is also a very historic property. It was the home of the Bagwell family between the 18th and 20th centuries. The family was influential in Irish unionist society and the property was built in 1785.
Parked outside of the property is Denis’s white Jaguar, purchased many years ago when finances were much stronger. The motor is a reminder of Denis’s love of cars — and of his first job as a mechanic.
Marlfield House itself is a 22,600 sq ft Georgian Palladian mansion which was burnt in 1923 and rebuilt two years later.
Previously operated as a hotel, similar to nearby Knocklofty, the property is now home to a number of apartments. Unlike Knocklofty, however, Marlfield is not in a state of dereliction and is where he still lives.
It is where he sits down to recall how he thought the answer to his financial woes could be found when a lifeline was dangled before him by none other than Catherine O’Brien. A woman he had never met but who promised him a way out of the financial doldrums he was in.
He believes she must have been aware of his financial plight from articles in the press relating to Knocklofty. He received a phone call out of the blue from her, during which she asked to meet him because she had clients who may be interested in Knocklofty.
He met her at the local Barn pub on the outskirts of Clonmel, where she told him that she believed an Arabian royal would be interested in purchasing the historic property as well as Marlfield House. She related that there was an unlimited amount of money available for investing in Ireland from “the King” and his business associates.
Not alone was the idea planted with him that the two properties could be sold — there was also a promise of a job for him which would enable him to remain in Marlfield.
He was to be one of the representatives of the consortium here in Ireland but would also be able to travel a number of times a year to the Gulf state.
As well as solidifying Denis’s future, his friend and employee Tom Moran was also to be retained at Marlfield under the new owners. Denis was to be Tom’s boss.
Tom recalls: “We were all made for life — the money was coming, the jobs were coming. Denis was happy, like a young fella going around. But no, it didn’t come true.
“I was getting a big job as well. I was going to be the caretaker. She didn’t tell me that now — Denis was telling me. That was the gist of it.”
Catherine flattered Denis by telling him that she could not work without having him involved. And while Tom says now that there had a number of opportunities presented to Denis which were too good to be true, Denis trusted Catherine’s story and apparent expertise and contacts.
Denis explains: “She was top class, really good, very good, and came across very charming and genuine and everything.”
But Tom says: “These occasions did arise before — people promising this and promising that and we had been cautious of people telling tall stories, so we were gone a small bit dubious.”
Knowing his property expertise, Denis recalls Catherine also telling him that he would be involved in identifying other Irish properties for use as retirement homes, for example.
He laughs ruefully when he recalls that he could not believe his luck when he met Catherine and she put a “plan” in place which would extricate him out of the financial doldrums in which he had found himself in.
He says: “There was no problem at all — she was going to sort out the banks and pay up everything and then I would get a lump sum of money.”
He was also to receive a vehicle and an annual salary. A contract outlining his terms and conditions was drawn up and there was nothing about Denis’s dealings with her that caused concern.
He recalls that the legal contracts were drawn up by Catherine very well, noting: “She was like a solicitor.”
Catherine told him that she trained in law for a number of years, and he describes her as coming across as very well-educated.
This reflection by the Tipperary man is an echo of earlier dealings which people had in Co Clare with Catherine, when she earned people’s trust in her by offering to help them with any difficulties they had which required legal knowledge.
Receivers had been moving in on Knocklofty at the time and Denis recalls Catherine collecting him at Marlfield one morning and driving him to Dublin to the offices of the receivers. Leaving him sitting in her vehicle, she was gone for a short while and returned to tell him that his issue with the receivers had been sorted.
He remembers seeing her going in the door of the officers before she returned with a business card, telling him he could rest easy now.
And indeed he did rest easy, believing that his troubles had been sorted out by meeting a kindly stranger who knew what she was doing when dealing with financial and property matters.
And while her dealings in the region of the Persian Gulf were a world away from Marlfield and Knocklofty, Denis felt reassured because she was liaising with an agent based in the Middle East who had also made contact with Denis by phone. He says:
The Dublin trip was not over without Catherine taking Denis to view some horses she said she owned and which were in a stable in Co Laois.
During that visit, Denis was led to believe there was no shortage of money because of the values of the horses she showed him.
She took him for food after that, and Denis felt a huge relief as he returned home to his beloved Marlfield, feeling that his life was back in control after the financial worries he had.
Catherine O’Brien was keen to show Denis a good time. He recalls being wined and dined in the beautiful surroundings of Hanora’s Cottage, a renowned venue in the Nire Valley, between Clonmel and Dungarvan.
The award-winning country house and restaurant, nestled into the Comeragh Mountains, close to Ballymacarbry in west Waterford, was a two-bedroom cottage when built in 1891. But now, it has been expanded into a larger and exclusive venue which Catherine O’Brien decided would be a lovely location for Denis English to enjoy.
The memory of the visit to Hanora’s Cottage still brings a smile to his face as he remembers it vividly. Not having had any money on him, Catherine paid for everything during the visit.
He says: “She kept paying away. I told her I had no money. She just kept … There was no shortage of money with her.
During the dinner, she told him of her great interest in the equine world, and of the horses she owned. Her interest in horses has been a staple of her life, and is reflected by a plaque on her now-vacated home in Dungarvan which has two horse heads, beside the front door.
The Buttevant woman was working hard to earn the trust of the Tipperary property owner and he unashamedly admits that her efforts worked.
It was during that dinner that she offered him a trip of a lifetime — an all-expenses-paid visit toGalway Races, on board a helicopter which would pick him up at his home in Marlfield.
Denis was very excited at the prospect. So were his friends. Tom recalls the thrill at the prospect of a helicopter arriving at Marlfield.
A Jaguar may have been Denis’s mode of transport but a helicopter arriving on the grounds of the old mansion was something of a novelty factor for Denis.
Indeed, aside from eagerly looking forward to the ride through the skies to Galway, there was the more mundane matter at hand – where would it land?
Although he admits that he does not know a lot about horses and he had only gone to Galway Races just once before, there was a great frisson around the trip offered to him by Catherine O’Brien.
After he told her that he did not have a huge interest in horses, she moved to assuage his apparent reluctance, promising him a fantastic day — above the normal experience of attending the famous racing fixture.
He says: “She said we would have a [private] box and food, top class — you’d be treated above almost like a king above in Galway Races.”
She promised to pick Denis up at 8.45am on the morning of the races. Nervous but excited too, Denis got ready. But as he waited for Catherine, he got the phone call to dash his hopes.
He relates: “At about 8.45, she rang me and told me I have bad news for you. I said: ‘What’s wrong?’. She said: ‘My mother fell down the stairs’.”
Denis told her he was very sorry to hear about her mother and the plan for the day was abandoned, to his disappointment.
Tom adds: “We were all here early to see the helicopter coming and then he got the phone call about her mother falling down the stairs. From then on, we got a bit suspicious that it [the deal] wasn’t going to happen.”
A further meeting in the Barn pub some time after the failed planned trip to Galway Races led to final preparations which led to the drawing up of Denis’s contract for his role in the operation. It also paved the way for a new bank account being set up which would host millions of euro for the planned investment, according to Catherine.
She secured Denis’s help in setting up the bank account, along with a man Denis did not know but who was an associate of Catherine’s. Millions of euro were due to be in the account very soon, she assured Denis.
However, those millions never materialised and the hopes that Denis had for a future free of financial worries began to evaporate.
He regularly rang a contact in the bank where the account had been opened to see if the funds had been transferred but the answer was always the same — none had.
Meanwhile, his solicitor also became suspicious when a contract sent by him to an address in Cork was returned to him.
However, Catherine — who was still in touch with Denis — had an excuse for both happenings, blaming cultural differences. The agent who was dealing with the issue for the Middle Eastern royal was also reassuring as he also believed and trusted the Corkwoman.
Denis finally discovered that he had been duped when he got a phone call a number of months later from a garda contact who had come across documentation relating to Denis while investigating Catherine.
The contact asked him if he had lost any money in his dealings with Catherine O’Brien and he was delighted to be able to say he had not been caught by her — although he recalls her asking him a number of times if he had money in any bank accounts.
While he had lost no money, he says that his dealings with Catherine O’Brien left him “back at square one”, still at the mercy of receivers.
He has recently reached a deal with the receivers.
And with him will remain the memories of the short few months when hope was given to him by one Catherine O’Brien, the woman he thought would be his saviour.
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