Quinn’s unyielding nature is both his strength and his weakness

IT’S A funny place, Ireland.

We are funny in how we react to things, funny in how we deal with events. We are different from place to place, even from town to town.

It’s not just a tribal thing. I met a woman from Oklahoma the other day, and she said when she’s abroad she thinks of herself as an American. But when she’s at home, she’s an Okie. Tulsa is not just the name of a song to her, it’s a place she describes lovingly.

We’re like that, too. When the Irish travel, we’re Irish, and we’re determined to uphold the good name of our country. That’s what makes Irish fans the most popular wherever they go, it’s what makes Irish workers immensely valued, from London building sites to Silicon Valley.

That doesn’t always translate at home. Here, we’re not Irish fans. We cheer for our county, our club, our province, first, last and always. I remember the remark made by a Mayo friend who had lived all his life in Kildare. I asked him if he was conflicted when his county of birth was playing the county in which he had chosen to make his home. The look he gave me was enough. “I cheer for Mayo. Full stop.”

We don’t necessarily have solidarity as Irish workers, either. The recent division in debate between public sector and private sector workers is a nasty spin-off from the collapse of our economy. Perhaps there was always envy in that relationship, but there was a time not too long ago when it was private sector workers who were envied — the opportunities for nixers, the second houses, the flashier cars. Now, it’s the public servant’s job security and pension that are the source of envy.

But one of the things that I’ve been noticing most strongly recently is the division between those of us who feel defeated and beaten down by what’s happened to our country, and those who seem to have a capacity to fight back.

This may, incidentally, be the thing that some people admire about Seán Quinn, a man who, whatever else, never seems to admit defeat. It’s difficult to drive around his part of the country, as I did last week, without feeling grudging admiration for some of the things he did.

It seems that many of those things were motivated by a determination to do something for his own community, while, in the process, making himself Ireland’s richest man.

Quinn’s refusal to admit defeat, while admirable in all sorts of ways, is utterly tarnished by denial of wrong-doing. He portrays himself now (and I’ve no doubt he sees himself) as a victim. But he’s a victim of his own recklessness. Even a very rich man, who decides to buy one of Ireland’s largest banks to facilitate the growth of his business, must know that he is taking a huge risk.

When he compounds that risk by betting the assets of his business, his recklessness crosses the line into irresponsibility. When he blinds himself to the fact that he and the business are one and the same thing, he is developing a convenient excuse to deny culpability. And when he decides to take illegal steps to thwart the legitimate orders of a court, he steps outside the law.

It is possible to recognise Seán Quinn’s achievements and still be critical of his actions. It’s possible, even, to feel sympathy for his fall and his pride. But it shouldn’t be blind.

The writer Michael Harding asked a question in an article the other day: Did Seán Quinn destroy Anglo or did Anglo destroy Seán Quinn? The answer, surely, is that Seán Quinn did a deal with the devil the day he decided to buy a bank with everyone’s money but his own. There is usually only one outcome to a deal with the devil.

And we’re all paying the price for that outcome. There ought to be some room in Seán Quinn’s defensive and self-pitying interviews to recognise that the damage done has been immense.

Apart from the crippling debt burden that has been visited on probably two generations of Irish people, his fall, and the collateral damage, has taken the heart from his community.

Take the town of Boyle, for example. Boyle is close to where Seán Quinn lives. It’s a pretty little town, near the beautiful Lough Key. They had a festival there last weekend, a literary and artistic one, and the people of the town made a huge effort. There was a bit of bunting, and many of the shop windows had been decorated with paintings and sculptures.

The centrepiece of the town, the King House, had a magnificent exhibition detailing the role of the family in the development of the town — including the Famine and the story of the Connaught Rangers, whose famous mutiny played its part in Irish history.

Not a lot of people came. I’ve wandered through festivals like these before, over many years, and I’ve seldom seen as little buzz. The local people were friendly and hospitable, but visitors were thin on the ground.

And as you walked the town, it was hard to see where hope would come from. Shop after shop was closed and for sale — whole streets of them, it seemed. Even the banks had pulled out of Boyle — and left their buildings in pretty shabby condition. Despite the best efforts of the people, it was eerily reminiscent of the 1950s and ’60s. And just like then, emigration has deprived this small community — population around 3,000 — of an entire generation of young people.

And Boyle is not alone. In nearby Castlerea, the story is the same. We stayed in Clonalis House — stunningly beautiful rooms and wonderful, gracious hospitality — and were the only guests for one of the nights we were there. The weather, of course, is playing its part in preventing people from travelling, but the town of Castlerea, like its neighbour, is really suffering.

IN ALL these places, and many more — places that have contributed their fair share to Ireland’s history — there is a real, palpable sense of hope diminished. I don’t know if, or when, it will be restored. When we — and maybe the West, in particular — last went through that period when hope was at a low ebb, it took 25 years to recover.

And when it did, far too much of the recovery was built on tax breaks for empty and rotting bricks and mortar. Far too much of it was built on the smoke and mirrors of financial wheeling and dealing. Men who thought they could buy their own banks with other people’s money. Men who thought they could land their helicopters wherever they liked, and call it their own.

We don’t have to begrudge the flash of the past. But we need to learn its lesson. Next time, let’s base the growth on something real, like the talent of our young people.

Let’s take it slow. Let’s rebuild hope on solid foundations.