The Breeda McLoughlin story

THE WORLD ROVERS
| Middle East
A Woman’s Heart
She’s never been on the payroll, yet she’s been a perennial part of the remarkable two-decade
success story that is Dubai Duty Free. One of ten children from a family of modest means in a
small Irish village, she now lives in one of the world’s great metropolises, mixes with the biggest
names in music and sport, and features regularly in the social pages of the Dubai media. Meet
Breeda McLoughlin, wife of Dubai Duty Free Managing Director Colm McLoughlin.
B
reeda McLoughlin breathes life into the old
cliché that ‘behind every good man there’s
a good woman’. For the past 24 years she’s
been an ever-present at the side of husband
Colm as he has driven the incredible evolution of a US$712 million business that today ranks as
the world’s third-biggest – and certainly its most highprofile – airport duty free operation.
laid table in the front garden of the McLoughlin residence,
just a runway’s length from Dubai International Airport.
Half the contents of the Caspian seem to have found
themselves onto the biggest plate of caviar I have seen;
there’s smoked salmon to accompany it and the Moët &
Chandon is both ice cold and plentiful. On this occasion
she is the interviewee but Breeda never strays from a natural pre-disposition to being the perfect host.
Her story is a natural – no, a must – for inclusion in this
book. And yet she is a highly reluctant interviewee. “Noone’s interested in my story,” she insisted when I first
approached her to do the piece. “It’s Colm’s story they
want to read.” But after much persuasion and, it has to be
said, some gentle arm twisting from her husband, she
agreed to meet, for her first formal interview since she
first came to Dubai.
She may be hesitant to tell it but her story is a compelling
one. It’s a tale of a small-town Irish lass thrust onto the
international stage; an insight into Dubai’s emergence as
a 20th century metropolis; and an evocation of values held
dear and clung to down the years – none more so than
her innate sense of Irishness. It’s also a great love story.
Well, let’s review ‘formal’ – Breeda McLoughlin doesn’t do
formal. The interview setting turns out to be a gloriously
Breeda with industry founder Dr Brendan O'Regan
Breeda was born and raised just outside of the small village of Newmarket-on-Fergus in Co. Clare (population
1,496 in the last census). “I was one of ten, five boys and
five girls. I was supposed to be the last – I was the 4th
from the top and that was going to be it. But my mother was ‘caught again’, as she put it.”
Three brothers and three more sisters were to follow. By
the time the tenth was born, Breeda was 16. It was a big,
close-knit and traditional Roman Catholic family. “We all
did all kinds of jobs,” she recalls. “The money was certainly scarce when you had six brothers and sisters
younger than you.
“We lived outside the village and went to school there.
My father was in the Post Office, which was at the heart
of the community, and he knew everybody. We all
worked at Shannon Airport in the summer holidays.”
The siblings are now spread out all over Ireland, and her
mother is “83 going on 50”. Sadly, Breeda’s father passed
away seven years ago. “He died suddenly,” she recalls.
“I’d been to see him as he was having a very simple operation to thin the blood, but the clot went to his heart and
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Middle East
he died suddenly. I was on the way back to Dubai and
they called me in London to say ‘Come back to Ireland’.
He was a great man,” she says with a gentle smile, her
voice tailing off.
| THE WORLD ROVERS
intervening period Breeda had met one Colm McLoughlin, who came to Shannon in 1969 as Special Assistant to
the General Manager Freeport Shops.
So what did the young Breeda aspire to from her life in
small-town Ireland? “There were two things I wanted to
do,” she replies. “I wanted to see the world and I wanted a job where I would be meeting people all the time –
and I got both wishes. I would probably go mad if I
worked in an office, because I love people.”
“Do you recall the first time – the absolute first time –
you saw him?” I ask. “To be honest I don’t – don’t put that
in the interview,” she says, roaring with the snortle-cumgiggle that lights up her every conversation. “But I do
remember that he was a very good boss, very straight, and
what I admired about him most was that he was very fair.
He was respectful to everybody, the guys in the stores and
the fellas pushing the trolleys. That hasn’t changed.
She admits to having been a modest student at Newmarket-on-Fergus secondary school. “I thought there was
more fun outside in the playground than inside school.
I was forever a free spirit I suppose. I was always in the
choir – both at church and school – and I was always in
the drama group at school which stood me in good stead
for what I do now.”
“I got to know Colm when we used to go to the buyers’
fairs. I realised he was very funny and very nice and up for
a laugh. He was genuine and very caring, and had a great
sense of humour. I couldn’t have spent my life with
someone serious.”
So from secondary school it was straight to working life
– and given her holiday work experience with Shannon
Airport there was only going to be one choice. “My dad
went and saw Gerry Blake, the Human Resources man,
and said ‘This wild one of mine wants to work.’ ”
And so it all started. The same Shannon experience that
kick-started an industry spawned the great Irish journey
in duty free – and inspired this book – represented the
fateful first step for the then Breeda Fox into travel retail.
The two married and not long after Colm took up that
fateful first tenure with Dubai Duty Free that was to
transform both their lives.
What was her reaction to the news? “Colm told me he
had a contract to go to Dubai. I’d never heard of the
place,” she recalls. “He went out on his own for the six
months, and I thought he’d be back permanently. Then
With then-US President Jimmy Carter at Shannon Airport
“I’d had summer jobs in the restaurant, so that’s where I
started,” she recalls. “In time I became manageress. Then
they started an Irish food store in the duty free shop, and
that’s how I started in duty free. I eventually became
buyer and supervisor of the Irish food shop.
“They were great years. What I loved about Shannon was
that no two days were the same. When London was
closed with fog we’d work 16-hour days, but it wasn’t like
work. You would see the Jews praying in one part of the
departure lounge and the Arabs in another, facing Mecca,
and everyone living in harmony.
“And I had two fantastic bosses, Jimmy Kelly and Liam
Skelly. They were always hands-on managers – if you did
something well they’d give you the heights of praise.
Jimmy was a lovely man, and Liam was a great boss.”
That role lasted for around 12 years before a very different challenge – and location – beckoned. But in the
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they made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. He resigned
from Shannon and came out.”
And so, therefore, did the new Mrs McLoughlin. They
were difficult times. “For the first two years I didn’t settle here at all,” she admits. “So after a while I made up my
mind to go back to Ireland for about six weeks and to see
how I felt. If I didn’t like the thought of staying, Colm
would have come back.”
That was a seminal period. “When I came back to Dubai
after six weeks the cup was half full rather than half
empty. I had a completely different viewpoint. I could see
that Colm loved it here; he’d always been very ambitious
and could see what was happening in Dubai way into the
future, which I couldn’t at the time. I couldn’t take all that
away from him. I did a lot of soul searching.
“I thought Colm would regret it for the rest of his life,
and I’d feel responsible. So I came back, settled in and I
never looked back.”
So compared with the lush greenery of Atlantic west
coast Ireland, what was the Dubai of the early 1980s like?
“It was just sand! We had to use Gulf Air [before the creation of Emirates –Ed], fly in to Bahrain, then down to
Dubai. As soon as we got near Dubai I would be able to
pick out my villa and I’d say ‘What in god’s name am I
doing here?’ You see, back then Dubai was only a dream;
but Colm saw that dream. He said this was a place where
it was going to happen, but no matter how many times
he told me I couldn’t see it then.”
What was that first summer like? “Unbelievable. It was
as if you had opened a bakery oven and just sat in it. And
the air conditioning wasn’t as advanced as it is today. It
was unreal. You’d leave your car outside the supermarket
when they didn’t have covered car parks and you couldn’t hold the wheel in your hands. Hence I have worn
gloves ever since – it’s just a habit now.”
With her husband working day and night on the start-up
duty free operation that would soon grow into one of the
world’s finest, Breeda admits to having been intensely
lonesome. “Fortunately I met Pat Macpherson [an Englishwoman] whose husband worked as an engineer at the
airport. She felt sorry for me because I was so lonesome.
“After having five brothers and four sisters who were my
best friends and having had a great social life in Ireland…
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With President of Dubai Civil Aviation H.H. Sheikh Ahmed
– “an amazing man” – and husband Colm
it was all gone. There’s a great social life here now, but
there wasn’t in those days.”
Can she remember when the Dubai phenomenon started to become reality rather than dream? “I think it was
when the war ended in Kuwait [1991] – all of a sudden
everyone began to know about Dubai. When that was all
cleared up, Sheikh Mohammed [His Highness Sheikh
Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and
Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai] who has a great brain
and is an amazing man, said it was time to get going.”
The rest is history – albeit one still in the making. Dubai
has become an economic phenomenon of our times.
Sheikh Mohammed’s Dubai Strategic Plan 2015,
announced in February 2007, included achieving a GDP
of US$108 billion and increasing real GDP per capita to
US$44,000 by 2015. Few would doubt his ability to deliver it. In the year 2000 the plan was to increase GDP to
US$30 billion by 2010; by 2005 that figure had already
been exceeded, reaching US$37 billion.
I ask Breeda if she thinks her Irishness helped her to
adapt and to succeed in such a different environment.
“Oh yes, definitely. The Arabs and the Irish are very, very
similar. First of all they are very family orientated – and
they’re religious as we are. And their hospitality is exactly like the Irish. They want nothing from you; they want
to give you something all the time, which is very similar
to the Irish where I come from. They also feel they can
identify with and trust the Irish. The Irish are not scorpions, they don’t get their claws in. They respect everyone’s culture, and that’s important.”
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| Middle East
Did coming to Dubai open her mind? “I think it did,” she
says. “It made me realise everyone was fundamentally
the same.”
Her close friends back in Ireland in the early 1980s didn’t see things in quite the same way, though. “Breeda, we
knew you were wild, but we didn’t think you were
insane,” was the typical reaction, she says with a laugh.
We fast forward the conversation 20 years, from the days
of a fledgling, slightly optimistic start-up to a position
where her husband and his work is known all over the
planet, and a life that takes in social and sporting events
from Australia to the UK, Ireland and the UAE. Is she
still the same Breeda McLoughlin that set out from west
Ireland on that journey into the unknown?
“Absolutely,” she says with real conviction. “It’s nice to be
important, but more important to be nice. I couldn’t
change. That’s why I would never move to Jumeirah
[Dubai’s upmarket beach and residential area on the
coast]. I like this area [Al Garhoud]; I know my neighbours
and there’s a real sense of village life around here. That’s
very important to me, and I haven’t allowed it to change.”
But there aren’t too many cosy evenings at home in the
McLoughlin household. Duty free may be the business
but free of duty neither she nor her husband Colm ever
seem to be. Dubai Duty Free is now such an important
part of the fabric of local society that there is always a
Mixing with ace talents: With Colm and tennis superstar Rafael
Nadal at the ATP tournament sponsored by Dubai Duty Free
function or dinner to attend. But in Breeda McLoughlin
that world has found the perfect frontperson – remember the girlhood wish to find a job where she would meet
people? And she’s not complaining.
“I consider it my duty, and it’s a nice duty to have because
you’re a representative of a fantastic company. They’re
extremely good to me, and the government is so good to
us that it’s a very happy duty. It sounds like a cliché but
I’m privileged and honoured to do it.”
And ‘meeting people’ has come to mean extraordinary
people. “At Shannon I met Jimmy Carter [pictured on
page 69]; and I also met [Ethiopia’s last emperor] Haile
Selassie – he was like a beanpole as you just looked up at
him. But you knew you were in the presence of someone
very special when you were with him, and you didn’t feel
as if he was looking down at you. That’s how I felt when
I met Bill Clinton – he was also very special.”
That was in Dubai during one of the former US President’s speaking engagements. “They were all queuing up
to see him,” she recalls, “and I thought ‘I am not queuing up to see Bill Clinton.’ So I decided I would be clever
– being a cute Irishwoman – so I went out and stood by
his big limousine. Then when he came out I was there
and I shook his hand and he said ‘Oh, you’re Irish…’ and
I said yes, and he said ‘Nice to meet you’ and I had the
feeling that when he looks into your eyes that nobody else
exists – you knew you were meeting someone with more
than charisma.”
Who have been her big influences over the past two
decades? “One of the people I most stand back and
admire is Sheikh Mohammed – that man is unbelievable.
If he says he wants something done, he gets it done. He
sees things, visualises them and makes them happen –
things you don’t think are possible.
“I also think Sheikh Ahmed [President of the Department
of Civil Aviation] is a great man – Colm has a boss from
heaven. He’s an amazing man who never stops working
– he does 16 hours a day, every day of the week.”
“Sheikha Lubna [al-Qasimi, the UAE’s Minister of Economics and the country’s first female Minister] from
Sharjah was the first local lady to really get things moving here. She is a Minister now and she deserves to be,
because she just went right ahead and made things happen. One thing I do love about Dubai is that women are
actively involved in things – it’s not just men.”
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An afternoon in Breeda McLoughlin’s company passes
quickly and pleasantly. There are many funny stories but
all are told with affection and discretion. Like her husband Breeda has embraced Dubai and Arab society and
talks of both with utter respect.
She has also mixed with the rich and famous, meeting
people such as singer Bryan Adams (“a beautiful person”),
Lionel Ritchie and Australian cricketing legend Shane
Warne (“I loved him – my kind of man… love the sinner,
hate the sin”). “Frankie Dettori (a top jockey) was a great
character, full of fun, full of life. I’ve met all the great
golfers and the top tennis players [Dubai Duty Free hosts
celebrated events on the men’s and women’s professional
tours]. Some lovely people.
“Monica Seles wrote a hand-written thank you note to Colm.
Not many people do that. Roger Federer is a nice man and
I loved Andre Agassi – he has more than charisma. He looks
you right in your eye and what you see is what you get.”
In the cocoon of Dubai society Colm and Breeda
McLoughlin are something of a celebrity couple in their
own right. A private dinner invariably results in a waiter
coming over to her husband and asking for a job. But
she’s not complaining. “Colm is the most polite person
in the world and when he gets a CV shoved in his hands
during a romantic evening he doesn’t mind. I always
think that if you are in a high-profile position you must
be able to handle what goes with it. And if you can’t you
should get out. It goes with the territory.”
Two decades down the line and what seemed a remote,
strange, risky place in which to stake your future has
turned into a global success story and one of the hottest
tourist spots on the planet. I ask Breeda what she makes
of her husband’s achievements in Dubai.
“There are two parts to the answer,” she says. “One, it
doesn’t surprise me in the least. And two, the whole thing
is unbelievable. Colm was always ambitious. He was a
great man to take a chance and, if it didn’t work out, his
attitude was ‘so what’ and he would move on.
“He was never scared to take a chance and he was always
optimistic. I have never seem him pessimistic and I have
never seen him unhappy going to work. He will find the
good in everybody.
“And yet he’s a family man. He’s the absolute father and
husband from heaven. I admire him so much for that. His
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Two Irish rovers: Breeda with King Power Thailand’s
Susan Whelan at the Raven Fox Charity Ball in early 2007
son is like his best friend and he absolutely loves his two
girls – who he calls his princesses.”
We return to the theme of this book. Breeda believes she
is infinitely more Irish, rather than less, after living abroad
for so long. “Being abroad definitely makes you more interested in your Irishness and what’s happening at home.”
But she says the Ireland she left behind has changed
beyond recognition, thanks to its economic boom.
“My goodness I can’t believe it. The farmers in our road
now have Mercedes, not Morris Minors.”
I remind Breeda of how Dr Brendan O’Regan, the
founder of airport duty free, talked of the way Colm has
been the keeper of both the Irish and the industry flames
[page 21]. “Colm has carried it on in a dignified way,”
she says proudly. “He’s Irish through and through. And
in business, while he’s very shrewd, he also operates very
gently. But he sees things way ahead of other people.”
Does she see herself as an ambassador for Ireland as well
as for Dubai Duty Free? “Oh always. No matter where
I am in the world I always think I represent my country.
You should never forget your roots and I’m very, very
proud of being Irish.”
The caviar is done, the interview too. And with impeccable timing Colm appears in the driveway. “Hello pet,”
she says, greeting her husband with an affectionate kiss.
“We’ve just finished. I’ve been spilling the beans…” �
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