Niall O'Farrell's magnificent home is much like the suits that make up his business, Blacktie -- made to measure, super smart, comfortable, with no expense spared. It's a project this 'Dragons' Den' judge relished, discovers Mary O'Sullivan. Photography by Tony Gavin

On RTE's popular Dragons' Den, the Dragons -- four men and one woman -- are all busy and brisk. In real life, Niall O'Farrell certainly seems busy. Perhaps the programme's catchphrase, "I'm out", is sticking, but it seemed hard for him to say, "I'm in."

Though he says he's happy to meet up for an interview about himself and his magnificent home in Shrewsbury Road, Dublin 4, it appears very difficult for this businessman extraordinaire to pinpoint a window in his diary. Appointments are postponed, possible re-arrangements are left dangling, but at last, third time lucky, it's on. However, he will only do the interview if the photos are taken at the same time: otherwise, the implication is, Niall O'Farrell is out.

But of course he's busy. While fans of Dragons' Den vaguely know that he's one of the country's top businessmen and seems to have money to squander on seemingly crazy schemes, in actuality he does have a huge workload. While he's best known as the owner of Blacktie, the hugely successful formal-wear chain with some 17 branches, he has fingers in many other pies.

He has three Henry Jermyn shops selling luxury shirts, and he's involved in drinks company Simply Direct.

There's also his partnerships with the companies he's chosen to champion on Dragons' Den. These include Button & Co, a jewellery company with the silver button as its signature product -- the appeal of which is instantly understandable, given Niall's long association with tailoring and his own sartorial style.

His property portfolio is also impressive -- as well as investments in Dublin and London, the dapper dresser owns houses in some of Dublin's leafiest areas, including Blackrock and Dalkey. But there is none so leafy as the Monopoly board's choicest address, where Niall lives in a splendidly cool, four-storey, red-brick home, furnished with exquisite taste and elegance.

Forget the reluctant elusive interviewee at the other end of the brief phone calls, it transpires that in person Niall is warm, funny and full of charm. Over coffee served in gold-rimmed china on a silver tray in his chic, antique-filled drawing room, he is keen not to come across as too flamboyant or self-aggrandising, and succeeds. "I'm ditching what I call the cream cakes of life and I'm on to the batch loaf," he proclaims. "I'm a very grounded person. I don't take rewards at a time like this."

He tells his story with self-deprecating wit and good humour, perhaps only these days -- some 25 years after starting his own business -- taking time to marvel at his achievements. And considerable they are, too, made all the more remarkable by the fact that he started out, aged 20, without the benefit of third-level education. "I didn't want to go to university," he says. "I wasn't the university type. I couldn't wait to leave school; to throw the school books away."

Initially, he thought he would follow his father, Robert, into his estate agency in Ranelagh, but it was not to be. "Growing up in the Eighties, I remember cycling home from school to Mount Merrion or getting the bus, and I always thought that the building in Ranelagh -- O'Farrell Estates -- was where I was going to enjoy my career as an estate agent. But, no. I remember my father saying: 'These are recessionary times; there are estate agencies closing down'."

Instead, Niall went into menswear, where he started at the bottom in Frewen & Aylward, the last of what he calls the Are You Being Served? sort of tailoring houses. "I started in hosiery. The first few weeks you were only allowed to sell socks -- you know, the pull-out drawers and the Sunbeam socks. They were great. And the old Burlington socks and Argyles . . ." he laughs as he reminisces.

From socks, Niall went into shirting, then tailoring, where he had a bit of a coup. "I sort of skipped the system a bit," he remembers. "I found a big bale of Crombie cashmere -- it had been sitting in the stock room for 16 years -- and I sold it to a West Brit captain and got a coat made for him out of it. When you come in a junior, something like that gives you a huge boost."

Though he had a very good rapport with Fonsie O'Byrne, the owner of Frewen & Aylward and his mentor of sorts, Niall moved on. He was keen to earn more money, and he ended up working in a dress-hire company that had a suit-rental section down the back of the store. Soon, Niall was hatching plans.

"The more I saw, the more I thought it could be a business on its own," this Dragon says of his beginnings as an entrepreneur. "I really wanted my own business. I wanted to get going. Up to then, formal wear was like a necessary evil -- people were going upstairs to old, dingy rooms or down to dingy basements. I wanted to bring suit hire to the high street."

He had £2,000 saved from part-time jobs such as gardening; he did a 20-week Start Your Own Business course and jumped on an enterprise scheme, which gave him a grant of £30 a week for six months and a small government-guaranteed loan. He rented a room from his father over the estate agency for £20 a week and from there he started the business with 17 suits.

"My first week's turnover was £32.50, for one suit rental of £15 and the sale of one shirt, £17.50, to Denis O'Leary in my insurance company, Hibernian Insurance. They now insure the entire group. He asked me for a discount, but I said: 'No, you're my first customer, I need this money, but I promise I'll look after you the next time.' And I never charged him for a suit rental again."

It wasn't all plain sailing -- the second week, Niall only made £15 for one suit rental, and in the third week he made nothing at all. But things improved dramatically and, having budgeted for a turnover of £11,000 in the first year, he achieved £55,000. Within three years, at the age of 24, he was making £300,000 in one year in one shop -- but he had one problem: the name of the business.

He initially called it Club Dresswear, but people found it difficult to remember. "People were calling it Club Wear, Club Hire or simply 'go down to yer man in Ranelagh'," Niall recalls. It was a dilemma, but he soon found a solution. "The Body Shop opened on Grafton Street and all the girls were queuing up for their mud packs for their faces and had their Body Shop bags. Then Tie Rack opened in Dawson Street, and all the guys had their Tie Rack bags, then you had Sock Shop. I said: 'Look at these shops -- we seem to have this unbelievable respect for UK-branded franchises,' so I said: 'I'm going to have this in my shop'."

He bought Gillian Bowler's building in Baggot Street, painted it white with a big black bow on it and announced Blacktie was opening in Dublin, as though it was a UK brand. "It was perceived like another Body Shop. And it took off."

It was an ingenious marketing ploy, something for which he seemed to have a natural flair.

"I did some courses at the College of Marketing," Niall says. "I didn't learn a thing but it gave me an awareness of what I knew already, gave me endorsement, a stamp of approval." Soon, he was opening shops all over the country and now has 17 nationwide and a multi-million-euro turnover.

From the age of 22, in tandem with his retail business, Niall began to build his property portfolio. That came naturally to him, too. "Dad was always rushing out to let another flat or to do a viewing of a house for sale. I grew up in a house where property was the business." Now, property is the biggest part of his business.

One of his best property deals was buying a half-acre site in Shrewsbury Road in 1998 for £3.6m. He sold less than half the site to property tycoon Sean Dunne for almost the same amount of money, and then built his own house on the remainder. If the site was a bargain, the same can't be said of the house -- no expense was spared in creating this 9,500sq ft of splendour; Niall's reasoning being only the best for the best road.

The house has seven bedrooms, all of them en suite, a luxuriously appointed drawing/dining room which runs the depth of the house and has enormous windows to the front and the back, a spacious study and a huge kitchen/breakfast room overlooking the perfectly manicured gardens, which contain several water features.

Special features within the house include a cupola and rounded minstrel galleries at first- and second-floor levels. But the piece de resistance has to be the basement, where there is a superb, 50ft-long heated indoor pool. It compares more than favourably with those found in the best spas in Ireland and has elements you won't find anywhere else -- such as the wall of black, Indian limestone with its row of precious artefacts, including a 168-million-year-old ammonite and centuries-old Burmese and Thai heads. These are mounted on panels etched with the same markings as those found on the Megalithic passages at Newgrange.

The basement is also home to a jacuzzi, his-and-hers showers and a steam room, all used regularly by Niall, who swims at least three mornings a week. "It's great to have a swim in the morning before getting into full battledress for an important meeting, huh?" In summer, it's ideal for family gatherings, as the pool opens on to a sheltered patio complete with garden furniture.

At basement level, there are several other features rarely found in the average family home. These include a fully stocked bar, complete with solid copper countertop, a cinema -- "this is where we had the preview of Dragons' Den" -- which when not in use is covered over with electronically operated curtains. All the curtains in the house are electronically controlled -- "you couldn't be closing them all by hand," Niall explains. Indeed, most things are operated by remote control. He can open and close the gates, put the kettle on and feed the fish in the tank by pressing a button on his mobile phone.

The basement also houses a wine cellar that is thermostatically controlled. Niall collects rare wines -- when pressed, he jokes the collection is made up primarily of Black Tower and Blue Nun, but it's said by those in the know that he collects only Bordeaux, with the emphasis on Margaux, Pomerol and Paulliac. He also collects fine paintings, particularly 19th- and early 20th-century British and Irish maritime art. He loves the work of Sir John Lavery and Nathaniel Hone, and collects pictures by Irish artists who he feels are undervalued; artists such as James Humbert Craig. "My house tends to suit traditional landscape and maritime art. With old art, it's obviously limited in supply, and demand creates a market, but I'm very careful," he says.

"I also love supporting contemporary Irish artists, as a support to grow their talent, rather than their wallets," Niall continues. "I don't pay big money for the likes of Damien Hirst. That's crazy money, that's like going to Vegas."

It could be said that crazy money was spent on the finish throughout the house -- there's extraordinary attention to detail. While Niall employed top architects and craftspeople, he also put a huge amount of himself in to the house, and his influence is in everything. "With a house," he says, "you're a little bit of an artist, you know. Your site is your canvas. It's a labour of love. Even if you sell it, it's still your achievement. You're not just building for yourself, but for the generations of others that come after you."

The cornicing in the study was created by an 82-year-old craftsman. "He only worked until lunch time," says Niall. "He told me he had worked all his life and was entitled to the privilege. He was dead right." Though the cornicing in the hall is new, it's an exact reproduction of a rare type.

The same sort of attention is paid to the flooring. The parquet floor in the drawing/dining room, made of oak and maple, took eight men three months to complete. "I saw the design at a party in a house," Niall explains. "I copied it on to a piece of paper. Each square of the parquet has 16 pieces." The floor in the burgundy study is made of old wood, while Italian travertine covers the floors of the hall and the kitchen.

The kitchen, built by Dalkey Design, is traditional in style -- painted in shades of what Niall calls "old white with a hint of sage" -- and has several unusual features such as the pop-up TV, which is concealed in the island worktop. "You can watch your share prices as you're having your cornflakes, huh?" he says, with a laugh. "Or maybe you couldn't swallow them, seeing the share prices." The kitchen also has an Aga, which Niall swears is the best thing for singletons. "It's roasting-hot 24 hours a day," says Niall. "You just get your takeaway from Roly's or the Butler's Pantry, throw it in the Aga and 15 minutes later, it's perfect. No turning on things. The Aga, you could just call it Mum."

Most of the time, though, his meals are cooked by his Romanian housekeeper. "Veronica is a wonderful cook," Niall says. "She's partnered up with the Aga cookbook, so I get a traditional Irish dinner with Romanian vegetables, and Victorian sponge with dollops of cream."

Niall serves casual suppers in the kitchen, but big family gatherings take place at the more formal dining-room table -- a recent celebration was his father's 80th. He professes huge fondness for both parents; his mother, he says, was "the academic cultural matriarch" and his father "the material patriarch, a superb provider" for the family of five, of which Niall is the second youngest.

His siblings include two brothers -- a property investor and an orthopaedic surgeon; and two sisters -- a lawyer and a deacon, who is going to be a vicar this summer. They're all terribly close. "Not a day goes by that we are not on to each other."

There are dozens of framed family photos, clustered on the many antique sideboards and occasional tables in the reception rooms. These photos include his seven godchildren, as well as friends. "My family are my friends and my friends are family," he says fondly.

The photos also include lots of pictures of Niall himself, and though you might not think it -- looking at this dapper, city-style figure -- he is quite the sportsman. There are photos of him skiing and sailing -- St Moritz is his favourite place to ski and he has boats in Cannes and Dun Laoghaire -- and even sky diving. He also flies his own helicopter.

He has a huge interest in horse racing, and his first horse -- called, appropriately enough, Mr Blacktie -- was a winner at Bellewstown. "I had three runners in Cheltenham and was in the winners' enclosure twice," he says with pride, adding: "You can be generations going to Cheltenham and never have a winner."

He is quick to point out that he has cut back to two horses lately. "And they've got to get out of the field and get over the jumps or they won't be calling me Daddy anymore," he says. One of the consequences of the banking crisis has been the demise of the charity circuit, hence a drop in the formal-wear market. Niall had left Blacktie to be run by the management, but he felt the need to come back, "take a hatchet to overheads and steer the company back to profitability." Personally, he has tightened up on all his own leisure activities. "Life is for living, not lavishing," he says.

He has a way with words, and peppers his conversation with witty aphorisms. Small wonder, then, that he's in demand as a speaker at conferences about business, and is in a position to advise people in authority.

One of his strong recommendations is for the reintroduction of government-backed training schemes, like those he benefited from. As he points out, he wouldn't have his own successful business or have paid tens of millions of euros in VAT and other taxes if he hadn't done the training course or got the government-guaranteed loan.

Niall's future plans include the possibility of moving home. He is in the happy position of owning a second house on Shrewsbury Road -- a dilapidated mews, which he plans to knock down and replace with a new house. So, he may sell the one he's in and move to the other.

"Yes, I think I'll move up the road. We'll test the market, huh, and see who wants to come on to the road and buy before the next boom." But he warns, with a laugh: "Don't buy on Shrewsbury Road if you're a shrinking violet." Now that's something Niall will never be accused of.

www.blacktie.ie

- Mary O'Sullivan