The Albert Gubay Charitable Foundation has donated €500,000 to help six Catholic charities in the Republic [1] with their work helping the poor and vulnerable through the Covid-19 pandemic [2].
It has approved €360,000 for Crosscare, the Dublin archdiocese’s social care agency; €70,000 for the St Vincent de Paul; €50,000 for parishes in Dundalk and on the Cooley Peninsula in Co Louth; €10,000 to Little Flower Penny Dinners, based in Dublin’s south inner city; and €9,600 to the Irish Council for Prisoners Overseas.
Born in Wales of an Iraqi-Jewish father and a devout Catholic mother from Co Clare, Mr Gubay, who died in 2016, founded the Kwik Save Discount chain in the UK during the 1960s and the 3 Guys chain in Ireland in the late 1970s as well as Total Fitness some years later.
In interviews later in life he said he had made a promise to God when young and penniless that if he became wealthy he would give half his fortune to the Catholic Church.
In 2010, when he was 82 and living in the Isle of Man, he set up the Albert Gubay Charitable Foundation and donated almost all his €500 million fortune to it, retaining £10 million for personal use.
In February 2011, Pope Benedict XVI bestowed on Mr Gubay the title Knight Commander with Star of the Order of St Gregory the Great for his philanthropic work.