Northern Ireland

Seán Quinn: 'I made plenty mistakes'

Sean Quinn at home in Ballyconnell, Co.Cavan. Quinn Country is a landmark documentary series by RTE, to be broadcast over three consecutive nights from Monday 28 November 2022 on RTE One and RTE Player at 9.35pm.
Sean Quinn at home in Ballyconnell, Co.Cavan. Quinn Country is a landmark documentary series by RTE, to be broadcast over three consecutive nights from Monday 28 November 2022 on RTE One and RTE Player at 9.35pm.

Former billionaire Seán Quinn has admitted he made "plenty of mistakes" but remains deeply defiant.

Mr Quinn, who built a business empire once valued at nearly £4 billion, is the subject of a three-part RTE documentary series, 'Quinn Country', which began last night.

"I want to be remembered for the man they tried to bury and they weren't able to bury him," the 75-year-old Fermanagh man told the documentary team.

Mr Quinn was declared bankrupt in Northern Ireland in 2011, a decision later annulled.

However, he was also declared bankrupt in the Republic in 2012. Most of the Quinn Group's debt was linked to the ownership of shares in Anglo Irish Bank.

In April 2011, KPMG was appointed as share receiver to Anglo Irish bank.

The receiver took control of the Quinn family’s equity interest in Quinn Group. Most of the equity was in the names of his five children.

Mr Quinn admitted he made "plenty of mistakes" but describes as "soul destroying" the idea that some in his border community turned against him.

He is particularly angered by comments made by the parish priest of Ballyconnell, Fr Oliver O’Reilly.

In a homily, Fr O'Reilly blamed the 2019 abduction and attack on Kevin Lunney on a ‘Mafia-style group’ with its own godfather.

Mr Lunney, the chief operating officer of Quinn Industrial Holdings, was abducted from near his home in Derrylin, then taken and beaten before being left near Drumcoghill, County Cavan.

Mr Quinn denies any involvement in the abduction of Mr Lunney or other acts and attacks that followed his ousting from the company.

He said: "If telling the truth is an incitement to hatred, then I am guilty."

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The documentary details how Mr Quinn's father, who could not read or write, bought the family farm for £2,000 in cash in the forties.

Mr Quinn made the decision not to take the 11+ transfer test, preferring to join his father working the family farm.

But farming was not for Quinn, who noted an old saying that farmers live poor and die rich because of the land they leave.

Avoiding a life lived poor drove his thinking from an early age.

"I suppose I was too greedy looking for cash all the time," he says.

Other contributors to the three part series reveal Mr Quinn was also shaped by his place, by Fermanagh, Cavan and the border.

Former Impartial Reporter editor Denzel McDaniel told the film makers that Fermanagh is like an independent country, always asking what has Dublin or Belfast ever done for their people.

His involvement with the Fermanagh championship winning Teemore Shamrocks of the seventies was also noted.

The team knew how to win, not least for taking players out by fair means or foul.

But he is still known now for building his businesses, cement, glass, insurance, that delivered jobs on the border.