Flight of the O’Ligarchs

When the crowds gathered at the Galway Races last July, race-goers could barely hear themselves speak for the noise of helicopters overhead. This year, there will be more, as a leather-seated twin-engine Agusta 109 becomes the must-have among Ireland's oligarchs.

Such is the buoyant mood among the country's moneyed elite that three out of every five helicopters sold by Sloane Helicopters are bought by rich Irish entrepreneurs, making it the top market in Europe, according to Sloane's Stephen Mitchell. While Gerard Creedon of Gaelic Helicopters says: "Everyone is aware of them at the races now."

Oligarchs tend to stay close to powerful politicians. Thus it was at the Fianna Fail tent at the Galway Races that multi-millionaire developer Sean Dunne, a close friend of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern,

met his wife, the newspaper gossip columnist Gayle Killilea. Their wedding party was a four-day cruise on board Aristotle Onassis' yacht, the Cristina.

Ireland has the world's third highest count per capita of billionaires, behind only Kuwait and Switzerland, and in 2007 Ireland's richest 250 boosted their collective wealth up to £44.24bn.

Like the Russian oligarchs, many Irish tycoons made their money on home ground - in this case in Irish property - and then acquired a portfolio of investments abroad. Ireland was once dependent on overseas funding, but today the amount Ireland invests abroad equals its level of inward investment.

By spreading their investments abroad, the Irish billionaires are expected to avoid the fate of some London-based property tycoons