Book Review: Trevor Birney's Quinn documents a man of the soil, where even the sky was never the limit

Businessman Sean Quinn was emotional during a rally in support of him and his family in Ballyconnell, Co Cavan, in 2012. Pictures: PA

• Quinn
• Trevor Birney
• Merrion Press, €15.99

Last December the TV documentary Quinn Country had the entire country talking about the dramatic fall of the successful Fermanagh entrepreneur, Sean Quinn. No documentary however, even of two hours duration, can explore the nooks and crannies of such an enormously complicated story like a book can.

Now that you’ve seen the film, it’s time to read the book. Quinn, the book, is the product of four years of investigation by Trevor Birney, who also made the documentary.

Sean Quinn is a complicated character. We learn early in the book that he ducked behind a ditch to avoid a bus trip to do his eleven-plus exam, then he returned home and told his parents he was going to work on the family farm. It was clear from the events of that day that Sean Quinn did not have a personality suited to formal education as we know and understand it. Therefore by society norms, Sean Quinn was poorly educated, but what he lacked in certificates and degrees he made up for in drive, ambition and the instinct and cunning which enabled him to use both sides of the border to his advantage. These traits were the foundation of his success.

Crucially, these traits served him well in the area of business he knew best; the sand and gravel of lands along the borders of Cavan and Fermanagh. Quinn took the very worst aspect of that land, its stony grey soil, and turned it into cement, tiles, and even glass. In doing so he became one of the wealthiest men ever to come out of Fermanagh and provided a secure financial platform that allowed hundreds of local families, on both sides of the border, rear their children in a manner that previous generations could never have dreamed of.

Quinn’s problems arose when he expanded beyond the border country. These problems emerged slowly. In fact, things got much better before his fortunes turned. Firstly he expanded into property. Then he built the Slieve Russell Hotel. Nobody thought a high-end hotel would thrive in the border country. It did. It was a major victory for the entrepreneur who relied on his gut instinct.

The Slieve Russell edifice with its super golf course and lake became the pride of the area and elevated Sean Quinn’s status in Fermanagh/Cavan to that of a living saint. It could be said that this was the point at which Quinn began to believe that he could really walk on water.

The author, Trevor Birney, points to a later success, that of acquiring the radiator company, Barlo (at a price decided by the toss of a coin with Dermot Desmond), as the moment that turned Quinn’s head, the question has to be asked, would Quinn have agreed to a coin toss if he didn’t already believe he was financially immortal? By the time he bought Barlo, Sean Quinn was also developing Quinn Direct, the insurance company that became an incredible cash cow.

Running an insurance company was far from the “gut instinct” businesses Quinn had built his success upon. Turning sand into cement, or glass, is one thing; the world of insurance is not populated by farmers who roll up their sleeves and get stuck in. It is populated by accountants, solicitors, and actuaries; people who are believed to look at their shoes as they walk and who never operate on gut instinct. Although it did not seem so for several years, Sean Quinn, the man who thought he could walk on water, was out of his depth.

The book explains Quinn’s love affair with Anglo Irish Bank with great clarity and how his uneducated hunch about the bank saw him descend into financial ruin. An investment of €2bn was reduced to €20m by December 2008. Birney outlines the terrible violence and beatings that became a feature of the border area as the Quinn empire fell apart. This is the most disturbing aspect of the Quinn story. The Quinn have always maintained that the family had nothing to do with the two major outbreaks of violence; on each occasion their pleas to stop were sufficient to bring about a halt.

It was the inhumane beating of Kevin Lunney, a former Quinn “loyalist” who played an active role in selling off of parts of the Quinn empire, that finally brought some realisation to the people of the area that the fight may not be worth the prize.

Quinn the book, is a welcome companion to Quinn Country the documentary. There are many outstanding legal matters that have probably inhibited Trevor Birney from digging further into some aspects of the story. That said, the reader is given a solid background of the Cavan/Fermanagh area, the main characters of the story and the good and not-so-good of Sean Quinn’s rise and fall.

On a national scale, the book highlights the differences, that one suspects are becoming more pronounced, between rural and urban Ireland. Did these differences lead to the deification of Sean Quinn on his home ground, and the perceived demonisation of him at the seat of power; Dublin? This is one aspect of the story that deserves further research, if only to ensure that such divisions and impressions do not re-occur.

We owe Trevor Birney a debt of gratitude for bringing such a complicated story into focus for the reader in the comprehensive way that he does.