Paul McCartney is now a billionaire, and the story starts in a Monaghan townland

Paul McCartney has crossed into ten figures at the age of 84. Forbes put the Liverpool man's net worth at roughly $1.4 billion, or about €1.2 billion, a sum built almost entirely on songs.

The valuation makes Paul McCartney the third-richest musician alive, behind Jay-Z at $2.8 billion and Taylor Swift at $2 billion. Forbes credited his catalog, his legal maneuvers, his touring, and his art collection for the bulk of the fortune.

Where the money came from

The biggest single piece is MPL Communications, the publishing company McCartney founded in 1969 to manage his own work and the copyrights of other artists.

MPL owns thousands of songs. Alongside his solo catalog, it holds Buddy Holly's music, Broadway scores, and Christmas standards such as "It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas" and "The Christmas Song ("Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire")." RTÉ reported that those holdings are worth close to a quarter of a billion dollars on their own.

As one of the four Beatles, McCartney takes 25 percent of earnings from Apple Corps, the band's holding company. Apple Corps generates about $50 million a year from streaming, vinyl, and merchandise, and the stake is worth more than $150 million to each member or estate.

His share of the Beatles' songwriting copyrights, fought over in American and British courtrooms across two decades, brings in roughly $10 million a year and is valued at $200 million or more. NME reported that his overall share of the Beatles catalog is worth around $350 million.

The remainder is touring, property, and art. The "Got Back" tour ran for 79 shows between 2022 and 2025. He owns homes across Britain and in the Hamptons, and his walls carry paintings by Picasso and Magritte.

The Beatles, a shot from "A Hard Days Night".

A Monaghan townland in the family tree

For all the Liverpool associations, the McCartney family story runs back through Ireland. His maternal grandfather, Owen Mohin, was born in the County Monaghan townland of Tullynamalrow before changing his surname to Mohan and settling in Liverpool as a coalman.

Mohin married Mary Theresa Danaher there. Their daughter, Mary Patricia, trained as a nurse, married cotton trader Jim McCartney and raised Paul and his brother Michael in a house that kept its Irish habits.

Mary died when Paul was 14. A dream about her years later produced "Let It Be," and he later said of that dream, "It was great to visit with her again".

His father's people were Irish too, reaching Liverpool by way of Galloway in Scotland, though the county they left has never been pinned down.

McCartney returned to Monaghan in 2002 to marry Heather Mills at Castle Leslie in Glaslough, a 17th-century house in the county his mother's family had quit generations earlier. Elton John, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, and Bill Clinton were among the guests.

He had nailed his colors to the Irish question long before that. In 1972, he and his first wife, Linda, wrote "Give Ireland Back to the Irish" after Bloody Sunday and released it as the debut single by Wings, a band that then included Irish guitarist Henry McCullough. Britain banned it. It went to number one in Ireland.

Still at it

NME reported that McCartney has not commented publicly on the Forbes figure.

He has given himself little reason to slow down. "The Boys of Dungeon Lane," his first album since 2020, arrived in May and earned him a Mercury Prize shortlisting. He turned up as a musical guest on "Saturday Night Live" the same month, and in July, he played "I Want to Hold Your Hand" at Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding in Madison Square Garden, the first time he had performed it in 60 years.

Morgan Neville's documentary "Man on the Run," covering his life after the Beatles broke up, also landed this year.

The Beatles finished with 16 UK number one albums and 18 number one singles, and McCartney holds an Academy Award, an Emmy, and 19 Grammys.