Quinn-tessentially Irish: We’re all victims like Sean

IF you watched Vincent Browne’s interview with Sean Quinn last week, you’ll know that he is not a delusional capitalist gambler, but a victim: a victim of the Anglo collapse, of a government searching for baddies, and of the smug Dublin 4 media, which enjoys stamping on the pain of others.

Those who turned out to support Quinn at the Ballyconnell rally are also victims: the victims of decades of government neglect of the border counties. In this country we try, sometimes unconvincingly, to declare that we’re great and everyone loves us and that there are so many areas of human endeavour in which we lead the world. But if you study the evidence, playing the victim is one area in which we truly excel.

Over the past couple of decades, we’ve witnessed a sorry slide-show of dodgy politicians and grasping business people and poisonously corrupt institutions. None of them have admitted culpability, and all have claimed they are the victims of powerful forces. Like a three-year-old smeared in Nutella, they say other kids forced them to stick their fingers in the jar; and that those kids gobbled more than they did.