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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
20 — village July - August 2012
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In the bath Seán Quinn
S
eán Quinn lay back in the gilt bathtub that he had got
the Quinn Group to buy for him, and was hiding from
Anglo, and reflected on how honest he was. I am a
very honest man, he thought, decent and humble,
wrecked by Anglo. I don’t use a mobile phone. I play cards in a
house at night where you have to go out into the front street to
go to the toilet. I’m not overly shy but I much prefer to sit back
and enjoy what I’m doing with my two dogs, the Wellington
boots on and dodging around the mountain. It gives my brain
more time to do what it’s best at doing. Being honest and get-
ting me billions offshore first and then away from Anglo and
NAMA. I am as honest as the Cavan day is long. So honest you
could play cards with me all day and all I’d do is dodge and go
outside to the toilet, shyly. Never do anything dishonest. Not
all day long. Never gamble away 2.8bn. Seán reflected on how
mean he was, frugal he called it. Way too frugal to be a gam-
bler. Warm water trickled down on him recumbent through
the sterling silver taps he’d bought in Sevastopol. Sure the
house was worth 10 million on its own, the size of a small
hotel. Class. So I rang Petey and said, lookit Petey, whatever
this agreement you and I had for the last six, 12 months. . .
whatever advice you’ve been getting from Russia, if you can
get that thing put together as quickly as possible it should be
done. I’d love to find a handy way out of me difficulties, try to
get a wee bit of pride back. He stuck a thick finger into the
jar of Russian caviar, pasted it on his tongue and swooshed
it against his palate. He loved it. Better than foie gras. Frugal
he was. If he managed just to hold on to the Ukrainian stuff he’d still be in
the top 200 richest worldwide. Not like when he was 146th in the Forbes
list and number one in Ireland. But still enough to make a simple man grin,
though his grin was a bit twitchy these days. Just me cards and me toilet
and me wee shyness. A few shillings and a top of the mornin to ye. Anglo,
them bastards in the Spotlight programme and the bloody media. Out to
get him for doin’ an honest day’s work. He tried to think if he’d ever had
a dishonest moment, even a wee private one, but try as he could he just
couldn’t think of one. I love myself he thought and he rubbed the carbolic
across his still broad and hairy shoulders. They couldn’t take those away
from him. Fifty years of hard work. 8000 jobs that was what it was about.
Not the 4bn he’d once had and had practically stolen from him by Anglo and
NAMA and a bunch of do-good gits. I’d a great business built up over dec-
ades until I got involved with Anglo Irish Bank, which wrecked Ireland,
bullied me out of office, raped me companies and made me a criminal
in Irish society. Petey warned me they’d do it. I had zero interest in
dealing with the State-owned Anglo after it took over the companies,
he reasoned. Poor Brenda hadn’t a clue she’d owned the Slieve Russell
hotel since she was three. A beautiful hotel if ever there was a beauti-
ful fake-pillared box in a car-park with Georgian bits added on to give it
style. The biggest hotel in Cavan and if I’d had me chance woulda been
the biggest hotel in the world eventually. The insurance regulator bas-
tards wouldn’t let me continue charging them special low premiums.
Just cos we wouldn’t be able to pay out on claims. Me ol’ Contracts for
Difference, me Nestlé shares and best of all me empire. Property empire.
Property Property Property. Contracts for Difference. Bad luck and a
bunch of bastards. So Aoife’s wedding was paid for by a subsidiary of
the Quinn Group and we claimed the VAT back from Revenue, said that
the wedding was a marketing event for the Hotel. Jayz we enjoyed the
vintage wines and champagne, me in the Bentley and Aoife in the Rolls.
Them’s my companies and Petey’s and wee Seánie’s. The whole war cabi-
net’s . Any loss to the Irish taxpayer from moving me assets beyond the
reach of Anglo Irish bank is Mickey Mouse. Never a day off in me life.
Never shirked a bit of hard work. Started with the quarries, a bit of the
usual with the border back and forth then the glass and a bit of fiddlin
with plannin objections, then plastics and soon I’d fuckin lost the run of
meself. Pubs, Hotels, Currency, and then the bloody Ukraine. Not my
fault though. Me beloved Japanese Yen all gone. 830m dollars pissed
away on shares other than Anglo. NOT MY FAULT. Anglo made me sign
stuff and sure poor Patricia wouldn’t have had a clue that stuff she was
signing was loans. Signin’ is only signin’. And now youse Anglo bastards
are saying MY family owes £2.3bn. BILLION. A lot of twenty-one you’d get
for that. How’ll they live on just 8k a month - the lads. Sure, I signed docu-
ments in a foreign language given to me by Peter Darragh Quinn and trusted
his judgment to get our stuff out of harm’s way. Sure, I’m mixed up in getting
randommers on the street in Moscow to sign documents they don’t under-
stand making them beneficial owners of Belize-based companies to which
we transfer tens of millions of Russian and Ukrainian shopping centres,
pubs, hotels etc to get them out of the way of fuckin NAMA on the back of
one of Petie’s special mystery loans, but I’m still little Seanie from Derrylin
with me gravel pit, who understands nothin, with me wifeen and a house
full of scruffy grandkids whose names end with een too. Above all me out-
side toilet. None of it was my fault, Ireland’s biggest ever debtor thought to
himself as he rolled under the turbo-heated bathwater. Jail me arse, he mas-
ticated bombastically, envisioning that cow the judge, who held his liberty
in his hand. But I won’t be goin to jail, sure I’ve too much money he mused
heedlessly. The cutest, greediest, most unaware, treasonous bollix apart
from Seán Fitz, in the history of the State - Haughey and Ahern included.
He rubbed a dirty facecloth down his fat arse. And squeezed it gratifyingly
into the peaty foam.
