Ground-breaking retailer Paul McGlade has died at the age of 69 following a short illness. Mr McGlade founded Champion Sports, Optilase, Thérapie Clinic and later owned the Pygmalion nightclub on South William Street, Dublin, in a business career that spanned more than 50 years.
He was born in Belfast in 1955 and was described by his family on Monday as “one of Ireland’s finest and most fearless entrepreneurs”.
His working life began in the markets in Northern Ireland where he developed an appetite for retail. “He quickly realised he was good at it,” his family said. He moved to Dublin in the late 1970s and shortly afterwards established Apollo, a store on Moore Street for bargain-hunters.
His family said he was “determined to leave his mark on the world” from a young age. “He was a tremendously hard worker who dreamed big,” they said. “His world was filled with possibilities and promise, and he coupled that with an innate skill for identifying what people wanted.
“He launched Champion Sports just as the craze for all things sports-related was taking off globally. It grew into a colossus that dominated the Irish sports retail sector for years. Restless by nature but always imbued with a child-like curiosity, he later founded Thérapie Clinic because he thought everyone should have access to competitively priced massages and facials.”
The first clinic opened on Molesworth Street in Dublin more than 20 years ago, and the group now boasts more than 75 clinics across Ireland, Britain and the US.
He married his wife Rita in 1981, and although they would later separate and live independent lives they remained “great and steadfast friends”. They had four children – Paul, Phillip, Katie, and William – and he “guided each as they too entered the world of business”.
“He was tremendously proud of his children and their achievements, and always marvelled at the scale of success of Thérapie as well as Pyg and their other endeavours,” his family added. “But commercial success never blinded him to the joy he felt in the company of his children and six grandchildren. They, he liked to say, were the true riches of his life.”
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