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The Million Dollar Irishman

By Chris McGale

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    McGale proves success and happiness aren't about luck but determination.

    Synopsis

    Chris McGale lived a life of ‘fight or flight’ and always chose to fight. His memoir tells of a remarkable journey from being the bookies-runner at his family’s Irish pub, to mega-stakes gambling, and to a dazzling City career with the Wall Street giant Merrill Lynch.

    Along the way he nearly died in a collision with a lorry and his fundraising for the Omagh Bomb victims led to a nomination for the New Year’s Honours List. The story also traces the emotional conflict, return to education, and reconciliation between the author and his next-by-age, fellow-orphan-child sibling, Paul.

    Then at the height of his City career, The Million Dollar Irishman went on sabbatical and never went back. He had burnt out, doing too much of what he called “The too muches” - a never-ending cycle of long days, late nights, booze, gambling, and the compulsion to win.

    This is his life story.

    A Dark Horse*


    Chris McGales’s life is a story worthy of Charles Dickens. Anyone pummeled by fate as often and as brutally as he had been should be in a psych ward or dead. Born into poverty in N. Ireland in 1988, one of seven children, his father died of cancer when he was three years old, his mother later succumbed to cancer when he was twelve, and he had a toxic, hate filled relationship with his older brother Paul. He spent his formative years during the violent “Troubles”, left school when he was sixteen, and was quarantined for tuberculosis, along with his despised brother Paul. All of this was before he was sixteen years old. Given this information who would bet on this kid surviving, much less succeeding, in life? This is not a life for the faint-hearted. Fortunately, Chris McGale is not faint-hearted.


    Just when it looked like his luck had changed for the better, bad luck made another fateful appearance. When he was twenty-five years old, he was in a horrific car crash, that should have killed him. But Lady Luck, perhaps ashamed of all the misfortunes he had endured, arranged to have a nurse nearby who saved his life. But his body was so shattered, McGale’s life was put on hold as he endured months of rehabilitation and earned the nickname, Humpty Dumpty man.


    Other than a talent for surviving adversity, McGale has a gift for understanding numbers and odds. A skill developed from his childhood of running bets to the bookmaker for pub patrons. He approaches betting on horses, boxers or poker with the same boldness and confidence that he faces life. It isn’t long before he graduates from small bets to handling millions of dollars and breathing the rarefied air of the Executive Suite of Merrill Lynch as Managing Director of Global Markets and Investment Banking. 


    No matter how many times he got knocked down,  McGale demonstrated an astounding capacity to dust himself off, analyze his situation and keep moving forward. They say you can’t keep a good man down, well Chris McGale is living proof.  Whether he is handed a winning hand or a losing one McGale is a sure bet.


    *Dark horse: a little known contender (such as a racehorse) that makes an unexpectedly good showing (Merriam Webster)

    Reviewed by
    Sherry Tuffin

    Former book reviewer for the Lawrence Technological University library. Wayne State University 2009 HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory) scholar concentrating on digital storytelling WWII oral historian for the Yankee Air Museum. Public speaker.

    The Million Dollar Irishman

    Written by Chris McGale

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    Synopsis

    Chris McGale lived a life of ‘fight or flight’ and always chose to fight. His memoir tells of a remarkable journey from being the bookies-runner at his family’s Irish pub, to mega-stakes gambling, and to a dazzling City career with the Wall Street giant Merrill Lynch.

    Along the way he nearly died in a collision with a lorry and his fundraising for the Omagh Bomb victims led to a nomination for the New Year’s Honours List. The story also traces the emotional conflict, return to education, and reconciliation between the author and his next-by-age, fellow-orphan-child sibling, Paul.

    Then at the height of his City career, The Million Dollar Irishman went on sabbatical and never went back. He had burnt out, doing too much of what he called “The too muches” - a never-ending cycle of long days, late nights, booze, gambling, and the compulsion to win.

    This is his life story.

    A fight with the world

    The Humpty Dumpty Man was the name given to me in 1988 by the head of a multi-trauma team of surgeons that operated on me for five hours at a Belfast hospital, putting me back together again.

        At twenty-five years of age, a high-speed, head-on collision with an articulated lorry had devastated me physically and mentally.

        Had I not been travelling so fast I would have been decapitated.

        In a one-in-a-million near-death experience, my life was saved twice that day.

        In another one-in-a-million chance my pay ascended from £1 a week as a bookie’s runner at my family’s Irish pub, Kate’s Bar, Omagh, Co. Tyrone, to $1m a year at the American investment bank, Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc.

        And then, in what I would later call my George Best moment, I went on sabbatical from Merrill in May 2002 and never went back.

        I gave up the one-million-dollar salary and retired to a darkened room to write my life story. 


    The Million Dollar Irishman

    Written by Chris McGale

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    About the author

    I live with my family in London but grew up with The Troubles. I spent 15 yrs in The City, starting at the tme of the Wall Street Crash, 1987 and finished earning more than The Arsenal. This memoir traces the journey from the warring streets, through a near-death crash, to burning out in The City. view profile

    Published on March 11, 2021

    Published by

    70000 words

    Genre:Biographies & Memoirs

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