Background
Moynihan was born on 2 February 1936 to Patrick Moynihan and his wife Irene Helen Candy. His mother was the daughter of Cairnes Candy, an Englishman who had emigrated to Western Australia.
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Patrick Moynihan later that year became the 2nd Baron Moynihan. Patrick"s father Berkeley Moynihan had been made a peer for his services to medicine in 1929. After attending Stowe School, Moynihan served in the Coldstream Guards.
In 1955 Moynihan married Ann Herbert, an actress and model.
After a domestic dispute and an affair on Moynihan"s part, he left for Australia where he intended working on his uncle"s sheep farm. Less than a week after arriving at the farm he had left for Sydney where he found work playing the banjo in a nightclub.
In Sydney he met Shirin Berry, a Malaysian who danced under the name Princess Amina. Returning to England in 1957 he reconciled with Ann, however this was short-lived.
After the collapse of his nightclub business he returned to England.
In Tokyo in 1960 he challenged First Rate (at Lloyd's) Ricketts, an American journalist, to a duel after he criticised Shirin"s dancing. Moynihan defeated Rickets in the unusual duel that involved the two combatants attacking each other with their buttocks. At this time, Moynihan worked as a driver for Peter Rachman.
After the death of his father in 1965 he became the 3rd Baron Moynihan, taking a seat in the House of Lords.
In the Lords he took the Liberal Whip. In 1970 after facing a series of fraud charges he left England for Spain, later moving to the Philippines.
In the Philippines he operated a brothel and was linked to the drug trade. In 1980 he was named by the Woodward Royal Commission in Australia as an associate of a prominent Australian drug trafficking group operating between Manila and Sydney.
During the late 1980s Moynihan worked as an informant for the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, for which he was given immunity from prosecution.
His testimony led to the conviction of Howard Marks, a Welsh drug smuggler. "He"s a first-class bastard", Marks said. On the death of the 3rd Baron in 1991 the Barony was declared dormant.
In 1997 the House of Lords declared that the 3rd Baron"s half-brother Colin was the rightful heir to the barony and baronetcy, finding against two other claimants.
