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Quinn: Grit and Greed on the Border

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I was very, very angry. And I made no secret of that. The heavy-handed approach, by an Irish government selected by the people, to go in with a heavy hand into a rural area, who had done nothing but good in that area, to take it over and destroy it, I mean, it was criminal. And of course it was going to raise tensions, and of course things were going to happen and did happen. Was I part of it? Absolutely not. Was I angry, was it done because of my anger? Was it done because I was telling the truth about what the position was? Maybe. But was I involved in planning it or involved? Absolutely not. Many analysts believe had the Quinn Group consolidated their interests at this time rather than further expansion the outcome might have been very different for Quinn. He also spoke of “a mafia style group with its own ‘godfather’ operating in our region for some time behind the scenes”.

It is clear that Quinn has not come to terms with his part in destroying his empire and is still trying to blame others for its collapse. 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”. Those present seemed keen to share their admiration for the man who was once Ireland’s richest citizen - until he lost his business after multi-billion euro losses on a gamble on contracts for difference - a type of investment on shares - in the former Anglo Irish Bank.Empires fall for many reasons but the end for the Quinn Group can be put down to greed and gambling. Outwardly Quinn was King Cash and deemed by the Sunday Times Rich List to be the 164th richest man in the world. He still put himself across as “Citizen Sean” — while owning a €15m private jet. Fr Oliver O’Reilly said the former billionaire emerges from the self-penned publication as “angry.”

They will continue to do so for the next two decades to cover the massive losses run up by Quinn Insurance. Tears roll down the face of Seán Quinn, with his wife Patricia, as his daughter Ciara speaks on behalf of the family at a 2012 rally to show support for the Quinn family, attended by up to 10,000 people in Ballyconnell, Co Cavan. Photograph: Alan Betson Quinn says he feels a weight has been lifted off his shoulders after finishing his book, however. “Now, in my 70s, I can fade into the shadows, knowing that my story is out there.”

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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. Recently I’ve been getting both persecuted by people advising me and criticising me, but it has been a joyful couple of weeks. We’re getting a lot of encouragement and support from people who are very annoyed about what was done me. I’m very relieved to have signed off on the book after spending a year and a half on it. Writing in the Sunday Independent in response to the Fermanagh businessman’s new book, Fr O’Reilly, who now lives in the village of Arva in Co Cavan, recalled first meeting Seán Quinn in the early 2000s. Now Cavan man Quinn says he’s telling his side of the story in his new self-penned book — entitled In My Own Words — which has just been released. Further expansion followed when Quinn-Direct insurance was set up which recorded colossal profits of €232m in 2005.

The priest, who has read Quinn’s new book In My Own Words, claimed its contents are “highly selective”. 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. What I found terrible in the programme was the venom that was directed against Fr Oliver. That surprised me’He is now gambling that his new book will tell his story and not remind the public of how they ended up paying his debts. Fade into the shadows? Hard to foresee. A sequel seems a lot more likely. Forbes resigns as director of piano competition Sitting in his lavish lakeside home, a broken but defiant Quinn is filmed admitting to his mistakes but playing them down. For years, he has been unable to get past the wrongs he feels at the way he was treated. The 76-year-old rages against those who stopped him retaking control of the empire he built. 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. He openly admits he made plenty of mistakes, but also sets out to highlight the wrongs perpetrated by others he trusted who were never held to account.

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