Michael Smurfit is best known for his success in the business world.
After leaving school as a teenager, he joined his father’s company before becoming involved in Ballymore International, Smurfit Kappa and the K Club.
However, less is known about his personal life, with the English-born Irishman delving into his experience with marriage in his 2024 autobiography ‘A Life Worth Living’.
Read more: Pippa O'Connor loves being in business with husband Brian and explains how they make it work
Read more: Vogue Williams on finding a ‘forever home’ in Ireland, running a business and best beauty tips
Michael reflected on being married twice, the first time to Norma Triesman, whom he tied the knot to in 1963 in London. They welcomed four children together, sons Tony and Michael and daughters, Sharon and Tracy.
Speaking about Norma, he referred to her as a “wonderful woman, a wonderful mother, a wonderful everything”.
He described her as a “tower of strength” who gave him self-assurance that enabled him to become his own man.
“I am extremely, extremely fond of her,” he wrote. “I was very lucky with my first wife and probably a bit unlucky with my second.”
He continued: “Norma was very feet on the ground. She was working-class people in London. She has very, very sound values and still has. She wasn’t interested at all in material things to any great extent.”
Michael later met his second wife Birgitta Beimark in St Tropez after being introduced by a mutual friend.
“I hadn’t been thinking of leaving Norma, but I fell for Birgitta. She was tall, blonde and Swedish,” he wrote.
He remembered the moment he told Norma that he wanted a divorce. He stated that they were at a restaurant in 1985 and he claimed that she “threw a glass of wine over me and left”.
Michael and Birgitta married in 1988 and divorced 10 years later. They lived in different parts of France, including St Tropez and Cannes before settling in Monaco.
They welcomed two sons named Michael Alexander and Jonathan Christopher.
In his book, he wrote: “As I explained to you, if I had had a younger life, which I didn’t have, I probably would never have got married the second time.”
He added: “I wouldn’t have let Birgitta get into my life. I wasn’t unhappily married until I met her.
“But having not sowed my own oats younger, I felt I am going to live my own life from now on, not live it for somebody else.”
Join RSVP Live's WhatsApp community to get celebrity news and our top stories
