Irish billionaire brothers Patrick and John Collison have criticised an article by Forbes magazine over its negative depiction of Limerick, where the founders of fintech giant Stripe both attended secondary school.
The article, which has since been taken down by Forbes but remains online on the RiskHedge website, was written by Dublin reporter Stephen McBride earlier this month. The introduction to the article reads: “They call it ‘stab city’. Many folks think Ireland is all rolling green hills and five-star golf courses . . . But in the middle of the Irish countryside is a city called Limerick — known as the ‘murder capital’ of Europe.
“A couple of years back, a gang feud turned Limerick into a war zone. Shootings, pipe bomb attacks, and stabbings happened nightly.”
The piece went on to claim that Limerick is the last place you would want your children to grow up.
“But two brothers who went to high school there recently beat the odds,” McBride added. “Not only did they escape ‘stab city’ . . . they moved to Silicon Valley, founded one of the most disruptive companies on earth, and became two of the youngest self-made billionaires in history. At barely 30 years old, Patrick and John Collison are now worth $11 billion each.”
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In response to a tweet on Friday night by Petula Martyn, an RTE journalist who described the article as “defamatory”, Patrick, who is originally from Tipperary, defended his Limerick roots. “Not only mistaken about Limerick but the idea of ‘overcoming’ anything is crazy,” he said. “We are who we are *because* we grew up where we did.”
In response to a separate tweet about the Forbes article, his brother John described it as “daft”.
Michael Collins, the mayor of Limerick, has called on the magazine to apologise. “Shocking journalism by Forbes casting such a slur on our beautiful, vibrant, successful and positive city,” he tweeted. “We are proud of the Collison brothers and what they have achieved.”
Patrick O’Donovan, a Fine Gael TD for Limerick, said that the article hurt local people. “As a representative of the government I am calling on Forbes and @DisruptionHedge [the Twitter handle for McBride] to immediately apologise to the people of Limerick,” he said. “[They should] come to Limerick where I will gladly set the record straight in respect of what our county and city has to offer.”
Last night Matthew Hutchison, chief communications officer of Forbes, said the article had been taken down before the Collisons’ tweets. “The article by a contributor failed to meet our editorial standards and was removed from our site shortly after it was published,” he said.
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Michael McGrath, the minister for public expenditure, said he was glad that Forbes had removed the “offensive” article. “Its characterisation of Limerick could not be more wrong.”
