The Big Developers:Seán Mulryan's early blockwork was criticised, but it laid the foundations for a multi-million euro international empire, writes Kathy Sheridan.

The story is told that when Seán Mulryan was 20 and on an AnCO training course, he helped to build a little wall around a neighbour's new bungalow at Oran, Co Roscommon. The neighbour took one appalled look at the result and spoke his mind, whereupon young Mulryan packed his tools and flounced off to Tallaght. And the rest, of course, is history.

Mulryan himself has said that he left school to work as a bricklayer and stonemason before, at 20, he bought a small plot of land on which he spent four years building a house to sell for profit. "From the age of 18, I always knew I wanted to start my own business. It took a lot of hard work to get the money to do it. In the end, I started the company when I was 26," he told the Sunday Telegraph.

That was 1982, a time of political insanity, mass emigration, soaring interest rates and unsympathetic banks. For Mulryan, it meant seven-day working weeks and relentless stress. "There were lots of times when I would pace the floorboards at night because we were in a difficult financial situation and at that time, the economy was bad and the market very difficult."

It is said that to finance his first development, he and his wife Bernie (a local girl from Cloonfad) sold their home and moved into rented accommodation, as well as trading in their cars for cheaper models. But that was then . . .

Now, instead of two old bangers, the couple have two Sikorsky helicopters (which by all accounts he uses like a bus service) and a private jet at their disposal, as well as the services of a full-time chauffeur when they must resort to the roads.

It takes about five minutes to fly him by helicopter from his stunningly restored home at Ardenode Stud - full of art and sculpture - in Ballymore Eustace, Co Kildare, to his equally exquisite, 18th-century Georgian offices at Fonthill House in Lucan. The helicopter is just as likely to take him to London, where he spends much of his working life near the source of his enormous wealth, in essence, vast swathes of land around the docklands in east London bought after the 1990s British property crash - which he modestly puts down to "lucky timing" - now set to make many more millions due to its proximity to the £2.3 billion (€3.3 million) Olympic Park.

Already, his personal worth is said to be around €350 million and his company, Ballymore Properties reckoned to have some €20 billion in assets.

As a result of his involvement in Britain's Olympics bid - he donated nearly £1 million sterling (€1.4 million) to the cause plus another £250,000 (€360,000) on the Trafalgar Square celebrations - he has been a visitor to 10 Downing Street and counts such luminaries as Lord (Sebastian) Coe among his friends. The story is told that, on his Downing Street visit, he was met by Gordon Brown, who asked him what the odds were that London would get the Olympics. Mulryan said he was in touch with consultants in Ireland, and their view was that while it wasn't looking too great, things could shift very fast. The "consultant" turned out to be Paddy Power. Such is the impish make-up of the one they call "the Quiet Man" in business circles and who the Financial Times describes as a "serious property tycoon".

INDUSTRY OBSERVERS AREnot surprised that the man reared as one of seven in a little thatched cottage near Castlerea and, without a third-level education, has conquered the British establishment.

"He has handled the transition from small builder to international property developer in an almost seamless way. He has style and a genuine interest in quality", says someone who tends to see most developers with a jaundiced eye. His ability to "open doors" attracts much comment. He is described as "one of those with the magic planning permission touch" by one source who cites Baldoyle in north Dublin as an example, a site which John Byrne had been trying to have rezoned for 20 years.

He has made no secret of his closeness to the Fianna Fáil tent or his long-time friendship with Charlie McCreevy. GV Wright is also said to have his number and he was a guest at the wedding of the daughter of former senator and quintessential Fianna Fáil insider Eddie Bohan. Former Fianna Fáil TD Marian McGennis has been listed among the beneficiaries of his political donations. It was revealed at the planning tribunal that Ballymore paid former Fianna Fáil TD, the late Liam Lawlor, £50,000 between 1994 and 1998.

His door-opening "magic" extends well beyond Ireland, however. The key to his success in Bratislava was having the foresight to employ someone who had been familiar with the Communist-era system.

His Eurovea project was launched with a laser show at the Palace of Culture, complete with full choir, the national orchestra and corps de ballet. When economist Dr Peter Bacon, Ballymore's director for Europe, rose to announce that work would begin the next day, there was a drum roll, upon which 40 trucks roared up the road and began clearing the site.

Mulryan is invariably described as generous to charities and to those down on their luck, modest, gentle, elusive and even understated, despite importing Debbie Harry of Blondie as the pièce de resistance at his 50th birthday, a champagne-only bash for 400 guests in a marquee of glass, and having Bono as an overnight guest (on a settle bed) at the old restored thatched cottage in Oran, with no modern comforts other than under-floor heating.

He sponsors several county GAA teams and caused a sneering media commotion in Britain when he was revealed as a quiet backer of the Niall Quinn bid for Sunderland when the soccer club was on its uppers. "Analysts call it 'Ego Money'," wrote one journalist, "the chance to pursue a hobby and to show off to your equally rich friends who don't 'own' a football club." Of course, what appeared to be a ridiculous vanity project has turned into double-your-money since Roy Keane took Sunderland into the Premiership.

His great passion, however, is horse-racing, although he seems vague about how many horses he owns. "I don't know how many," he told one reporter, "somewhere between 50 and 100."

It's probably why they call him the Quiet Man.