Thousands show their support in Quinn heartland

Thousands of supporters of the Quinn family, including Tyrone manager Mickey Harte, former Meath manager Seán Boylan and Father Brian D’Arcy, attended a rally in Co Cavan yesterday.

The crowds in Ballyconnell, the site of a Quinn packaging plant, urged the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation to seek the suspension of the contempt orders issued against them this week. Anti-Anglo Irish Bank placards and others denouncing the “English Regulator” were on display.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that Sean Quinn’s nephew, Peter Darragh Quinn, who has a warrant out for his arrest in the Republic, attended another GAA match yesterday.

He was spotted at a Fermanagh senior championship game between Lisnaskea and Devenish.

An earlier photograph had shown him with his father, former GAA president Peter, at a club match in Kinawley, Co Fermanagh on Friday.

Last night’s demonstrators said they were holding the march to show their solidarity with the Quinn family and to “support natural justice”.

There were repeated calls from various speakers for the High Court’s contempt actions against Sean Sr, Sean Jr and Peter Darragh Quinn to be suspended until the case between the Quinns and IBRC has been settled.

They also want IBRC to suspend all further proceedings against the family “until the legitimacy of the €2.3bn debt is clarified”.

Sean Quinn Sr has admitted he is likely to go to jail but claimed his family had “no choice” but to fight the actions of the former Anglo Irish Bank, which he said was “the most-hated institution in the history of the State”.

In a RTÉ radio interview, he accepted that he had made “serious mistakes”, particularly in investing in Anglo, but was also defiant in condemning the bank and its actions.

Both Sean Quinn Jr and Peter Darragh Quinn were sentenced to 90 days in prison for their contempt of previous High Court orders demanding that the family stop trying to move its overseas assets beyond the reach of IBRC, to whom Quinn and his group owe €2.3bn.

Sean Quinn Jr has already begun his sentence but Peter Darragh has fled across the border where his arrest order is not valid.