Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
An entrepreneur who rose from Dublin slums to become one of Ireland's richest men, owning a major Ford dealership and car distribution company.
On the island
Eight records
It's the song that my mother always sang in her dream wish voice, Lullaby and the babies, the ever-present babies. And she used to stay awake till three in the morning and she'd be rocking the cross the cot with her foot, she'd be ironing clothes and darning and Gansies and all this stuff and dreaming her dreams.
Whenever I Feel Afraid, I hold my head erect. And my grandmother used to make us then sing that every Saturday evening in our house. And when we were in the tenements, living in the tenements with no lights, big dark hallways, rats scurrying around, some tramps maybe in hobos living in the hall, we used to all walk in, going, I don't ever I used to sing this song.
Theme from New York, New YorkFavourite
My favorite song of all my Sinatra collection, and I have them all, is uh The Real Swinger One, The Place That I Love, One of My Great Destinations whenever I go to the States, and that's New York, New York.
The Man That Gave Us Freedom as Teenagers, and it's a very evocative song
The Beatles came to Dublin and they made their only public appearance there in in the Adelphi cinema. And the great story is I used to sell newspapers as well, and they had their limousines out the front while they did a show, and we had an Evening Herald newspaper van outside the back, and we orchestrated it after the show when a couple of fellas went running out, supposedly to them, out at the front of the crowds. The four Beatles got into an Evening Herddal van and drove away.
Record number six is from my Jackie, my partner for the past twenty five years after my first relationship, my first marriage broke down. And when you've heard Jackie speaking, and she's a very cultured lady, a lady of an upmarket girl, and here I am, the fellow with no ass in my trousers.
Well this one this one is definitely theirs. This is uh Beth Middler singing The Wi The Wind Beneath My Wings and that's specially for them.
My master record, my first real holiday was I got a fortnight off myself with a couple of my friends and we went hitchhiking round Ireland. And at that time, the minute you stood out in the road and waved your tongue, a car stopped. Everyone stopped and gave you a lift forty years ago. And we went around Ireland and we saw how beautiful Ireland was.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:31What you seem to have had all the way through is this kind of positive approach, which is really your form of luck, isn't it?
Well, I say it's probably in the genes, Sue, but it's it's also part and parcel of the habits you develop from an early age. And uh that's what I got in my mother's house. We had tough times, but she raised us all to be very positive, yes, look in the mirror every morning, a big smile, and say I am terrific and never leave this house without a smile on your face and your ch and your head high.
Presenter asks
2:52Did [your mother] live to see you make your first million?
Well, she did. And I remember I'll say this to everybody. In nineteen seventy seven, I opened my own Ford dealership that she was at, and I made a speech. And that night, the President of Ford of Europe was there, and he turned to my mother and said, … You must be very proud of your son Bill tonight, Mrs Cullen. And she said two things that stuck him to the floor. The first one was, I'm not waiting till to night to be proud of that young fellow. Then she turned and see over there, there's eleven of his brothers and sisters, carpenter, bricklayer, housewife. I'm just as proud of every one of them. You needn't think money makes any difference to me, and success is not about money, is what she said.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
Brendan Kennelly
The book is a book by a Kerry man, and Jackie's from Carey, and we have our home in Carey, as I told you. A Kerry man called Brendan Canelli. He's now Professor of Modern Literature in Trinity College, and he's written many, many, many books. He's a wonderful poet, he's a wonderful man. And one of his books that we love is Glimpses. And the reason I bring it to a Desert Island is it's not stories, they're little six and eight line poems. And it's called Glimpses because every one of them gives an insight into the Irish psyche. And knowing Ireland as well as I do, I can see all the different people he's talking about.
The luxury
My luxury. Um well, I've always wanted to play a new musical instrument, I never got the time to do it. My Uncle Bob, he played the accordion, and I used to love that he was able to play the accordion, sing and dance at the one time, like a one man band. So I want to bring an accordion, and I'll take the time over there to learn it, and hope to play it as well as Uncle Bob did.
Despite all of this [poverty] you did not regard yourselves as poor, did you?
No. I remember vividly one day when my grandmother used to sell her fish and on Saturday I used to be her financier and I'd go in and count the money and you'd put so much in the jug for the rent and so much for her to pay all her little bills and so much for the rainy day and whatever is left might be fifteen shillings or a pound. And she'd say, Now put that in an envelope somewhere and bring it over to the nuns. And I remember saying to her, What are we giving this money to the nuns for, Granny? She says, Because the nuns look after the poor. And I said, aren't we poor, Granny? Poor? You have shoes on your feet, clothes on your back, roof over your head, get two meals a day, mammy and daddy who loves you. You're a very rich son. … So, you know, we were poor, the neighbours were poor, but none of us knew we were poor. We had no money, there were no expectations in those days. We were all the same.
Presenter asks
12:47What about politics? What about republicanism? ... That was a common bond as well, wasn't it?
Well, I often say that uh I'm a republican, I'm a nationalist and I believe that Ireland should be a whole uh island of Ireland, um but we would never ever ever uh get involved in violence.
Presenter asks
23:50Giving up on that [first] marriage must have been ... alien to everything that you were taught?
I mean, think about it, it was back in the early seventies. It's thirty years ago now. So it was alien. It took uh tre tremendous trauma. … I didn't know it was the right thing to do. … And yet I felt so devastated with my two children. I would only be able to see them on a weekly basis and that kind of stuff. And I remember going in and telling my mother, and she was devastated. She couldn't. She took her years to reconcile herself to it. Or the pride of her life, me doing something like this. And as she said, she prayed for me every day for the rest of her life more than she'd ever prayed before I did it. And maybe that's what took me through it. But I knew it was a good idea.
Presenter asks
25:35Where does it leave your faith today, having gone through all of that?
My fate today falls back on Molly Darcy again, and she just called me in, she sat down and heard all about it, son, and you're not to worry about this at all. And she had a great habit with me, and this never happened to her siblings, she used to put her thumb into the into the ashes of the f tour fire and make a cross on my forehead the way they do on Ash Wednesday. … She said, Now you remember this, she said. … The only thing you have to remember, as far as God is concerned, is do unto others. … And I suppose that's the philosophy that I let take over with me. I've done all that. I never hold any bitterness.
“I actually say today, Sue, that my achievements are the realization of my mother's potential.”
“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. We have today. Let's make the best of it. Let's go.”
“You'll never make money working for another man. … Get your own business. She says, You're going to be able to do that. I told you, you'll never meet a man better than yourself. If someone else can do it, you can do it. Get your own business.”