Quinn: Grit and Greed on the Border

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Remarkably, Quinn has said he is not “a risk taker”, although he did admit later that his Anglo investment was “one bad one and one fatal one”. In the early years of the twenty-first century, Seán Quinn was considered to be Ireland’s richest man, with a Midas touch: everything he touched seemed to turn to gold. His company owned Ireland’s only glass producers, and one of its biggest insurance companies. The Quinn Group built the Slieve Russell, one of Ireland’s premier hotels, and owned one of Britain’s most prestigious golf resorts, The Belfry, as well as a number of pubs, hotels, office complexes and shopping centres across Europe and Asia. Why did his empire collapse so suddenly, and disastrously? The Quinn businesses had invested heavily in ‘contracts for difference’ (CFDs) in Anglo-Irish Bank, a blue-chip company. The failure of the Irish banking system in 2008 eventually led to Quinn’s losses of €3 billion, and to the demise of his business empire, devastating Quinn, his family, and his local community. Another local, no admirer of Quinn, said he had shown his “true colours” with his comments about Kevin Lunney.

What did not surprise him, or many locals, however, was the depiction of Quinn as a gambler who continued to roll the dice even when his Anglo Irish losses mounted. He then began selling it to local builders and, after making some money, expanded into other sectors. In his own self-penned piece published over the weekend, the priest said the book had omitted government offers allowing Quinn to regain some properties, including the Slieve Russell, in return for disclosing overseas assets. But readers will also find it hard to have sympathy for a man who would pay €100,000 for his daughter’s wedding cake and gamble away €2bn on a busted bank claiming he is the victim. Read More Related Articles

The priest, who has read Quinn’s new book In My Own Words, claimed its contents are “highly selective”.

The priest said while Quinn deserves much credit for the business acumen that built his empire: “The author comes across as an angry man with a deep grudge." Recalling the period both before and after the kidnapping of Kevin Lunney, Fr O’Reilly said the directors of Quinn’s former companies endured years of “horrendous intimidation, abuse, threats, physical assaults and orchestrated vilification on local social media platforms”. The inside story of Ireland's bankrupt billionaire, Sean Quinn, who went from rags to riches before gambling it all on Anglo-Irish Bank shares and becoming the world's biggest personal loser of the economic collapse of 2008. This is the remarkable story of the man everyone said was too big to fail. The management of Mannok, as QIH is now known, were not enthusiastic about the documentary, and would have preferred it to have never been made, but there was bemusement at its Derrylin headquarters in Fermanagh on Thursday after they concluded that “Alan Dukes had become the bloody story”, according to someone present.Quinn Cement was the foundation of his empire in the late 1980s and in the following years his involvement in glass manufacture and hotels added to his growing fortune. But between 2007 and 2013, the Quinn Group became one of Ireland’s biggest ever business failures. Seán Quinn became Ireland’s biggest ever bankrupt, and in the winter of 2012–2013 he ended up in jail for nine weeks, having been found in contempt of court. He shed tears but they were for himself and not for Kevin Lunney. The big house, Lord save us. He will not want for anything’ His gamble on Anglo — the world’s most toxic bank — not only led to the destruction of his own business empire but cost the Irish taxpayer billions of euro. Indeed the public are reminded of his financial downfall every time they take out an insurance policy as they pay a two per cent levy on every motor and home policy.

Mr Quinn had told Ms Sheehan during her interview with him that she was “just talking s***”. But Mr Quinn told the Fermanagh Herald this week: “I lost my rag and I apologise for it”. He said he had been irritated “but I was wrong. I should have had better wit”.

Many years later, the same locals who had protested its movement at the time would say that Sean Quinn’s downfall was all because he’d tampered with that fairy fort. What I found terrible in the programme was the venom that was directed against Fr Oliver. That surprised me’ Quinn ended up owing Anglo, which had gone bust and was nationalised, almost €3bn, eventually resulting in the bank seizing control of his business empire in 2011. He continues to use the royal “we” when talking about his past actions although he and his family were at one time considered royalty in “Quinn Country”.