NOELLE Campbell-Sharpe. A douhle-barrelled name with a double-barrelled personality to match. Variously described as publisher, business woman, car hohbyist and inventor, collector of Napoleonic hooks and artefacts, and social butterfly, to name but a few, one thing is unanimously agreed: controversy tails her like a shadow.
Once again the gregarious and larger-than-life figure with a taste for the high life has been in the papers, following a reference to her in Hugh Leonard's tight-hearted diary column in the Sunday Independent. Her visit to the High Court over Leonard's article proved a worthwhile step into the limelight, earning her £70,000 and costs. It was not her first action over media articles.
Despite her public profile and an inclination towards newspaper interviews, the real Noelle Campbell-Sharpe is not easy to pigeon-hole. These days, she spends much of her time in the pre-Famine village of Cill Rialaig, Co Kerry, where she has provided a sanctuary for artists - a far cry from the frantic world of publishing. She sold her Killiney home and moved to a house on the remote site.
A close friend said she had devoted almost three years to the project.
When asked what motivated her, her friend commented: "She has a great interest in the arts and has a very inquisitive and interesting mind. What her main motivation is I don't know at this stage. I don't think she will go back into publishing."
Best known for her involvement with the upmarket magazines Social and Personal, Irish Taller and Success, Ms Campbell-Sharpe came from humble beginnings and has spoken frankly about how she was orphaned as a small child after being abandoned by her parents. Her Irish father emigrated to America and her French mother, she assumes, went back to France.
Of her upbringing she once remarked: " was very short of love as a child, and became precocious, then as an adult, provocative."
A star pupil with the nuns who taught her, she left school at 15 to become a clerk/typist at 30 shillings a week. Her surrogate family felt she should be earning her keep at this stage. This modest post at a farm machinery firm, however, was capitalised upon in a manner which high-lighted her drive and ambition. She turned 30 shillings a week into an indispensable £16 a week job, making her "the highest-paid secretary in Wexford".
The man she married, Neil Campbell-Sharpe, came from a wealthy family. She worked for to years helping in his business. However, she stressed in an interview 12 years ago that she never accepted money from his family. Indeed, she did much charitable work, particularly with the Simon Community, at this time.
She first gave notice of her publishing prowess in a Junior Chamber of Commerce newsletter entitled Flashpoint, which also carried her own column spectacularly billed The Anti-Christ Is Home. It surely came as no surprise to its readers when the author went on to become known as a feisty and, according to some, "ruthless" magazine proprietor.
Her company Irish Tatler Publications, was established in 1979, in partnership with Kilkenny People editor, John Kerry Keane. The company included IT and Social and Personal in 1984, she took over the reins of Success magazine from editor Robin Challis and in 1986 she began publishing an in-flight magazine for Ryanair.
Later, the go-getting publisher was granted a High Court injunction to prevent Ryanair from publishing a non-Campbell-Sharpe produced magazine on its flights.
Two years ago, Ms Campbell-Sharpe displayed aspirations towards an involvement in the music industry, applying her publicity-grabbing skills to rock band Against The Storm.
Cynical industry hacks saw Ms Campbell-Sharpe's bank-rolling of the band and her extravagant press launches as a crude attempt to become "the next Paul McGuinness".
One rock journalist said: "The general view was that she had come into some money and decided to railroad her way into the music industry by getting this band signed, but it didn't work.
"She was a very aggressive business person and she probably thought that's all it would take. Some of the publicity for the band was also much more about her and that was commented on in the music industry."
Her ability to ruffle feathers has been demonstrated over and over down the years. In 1992, she caused consternation when she sought election to the board of the Bank of Ireland. Proposed by a group of shareholders who had previously failed to get two women elected, her assault on the male preserve in place for more than 200 years was in vain.
Following her defeat, the ebullient Ms Campbell-Sharpe told journalists: "Like Padraig Pearse, I did not expect to win the battle today, but to inspire the war that will surely happen."