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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
1 4 June 2017
T
HE DEATH at 81 of Sean McEniff
removes one of the last old-style politi-
cal fixers from Ireland’s political
landscape. McEniff was the co-owner
of the Tyrconnell Group, a hotel chain.
In 2007 Tyrconnell had merged with the Brian
McEniff Hotel Group, owned by his brother, Brian
McEniff, an All-Ireland-winning manager of Don-
egal football team, to form McEniff Hotels.
McEniff served as chairman of Bord Fáilte, the
tourist marketing board 1993-1998 and at one
time was a Lloyds’ ‘name’ though he lost at least
€8m there.
His hotel empire extended to ten hotels coun
-
trywide including the Skylon, Grand Canal and
Camden Court in Dublin, the Yeats Country Hotel
in Rosses Point, Sligo, the Westport Woods in
Mayo. But the core of the empire was Donegal,
where the company owns the Mount Errigal in
Letterkenny, and the Allingham Arms, Holyrood
and Great Southern in Bundoran. The group
weathered the economic downturn well.
McEniff ruled his home town of Bundoran with
a rod of iron, and ran a network of companies
based on hotels, gambling arcades and holiday
accommodation which together undermined the
charm of Donegal’s leading resort.
At the time of his death, he was Ireland’s long-
est-serving councillor, having been first elected
to Bundoran Urban District Council in the early
1960s, then to Donegal County Council in 1967.
That’s more than half a century. He ensured
political decisions were taken to benefit him and
his family.
He was also a racist and bully.
He once told local radio that Travellers “wreck
homes” and should be housed away from other
people. He said “there should be an isolated
community of them some place – and give them
houses and keep them all together”. “You
wouldn’t want them beside you and I don’t want
them beside me”. He was complaining about a
house being bought in Ballyshannon for a Trav
-
eller family, and said it was “par for the course”:
the house would eventually be “wrecked”. The
house was burned in an arson attack after his
outburst. In fairness, he condemned the arson
attack.
He believed he could bully state institutions.
In November 2005 he threatened to take legal
action against Met Éireann because it issued a
severe weather warning. He claimed the tourist
industry in Donegal suffered heavy losses. His
own business was hit, as fewer than expected
turned up to a music festival in one of his Bun-
doran hotels. “There was damn all snow in
Donegal”, he said. “The Met Office has shafted
us”.
He was vindictive. When
one local taxi driver fell foul
of him, he instructed the
three McEniff hotels in Bun-
doran that, if guests were
seeking a taxi, this driver
was not to be sent for.
When the Council’s feisty
traffic warden objected to
several developments by
McEniff and others, she was
dismissed. She is currently
in legal dispute with some
former councilors, including McEniff.
His empire traced its foundation to slot
machines. These machines don’t just operate
during the summer holiday season. In winter,
buses run to Bundoran from several towns in the
North bringing gamblers, mostly elderly, poor,
or both. Under legislation, the maximum legal
payout from a slot machine is less than €1.
McEniff was by far the largest slot machine oper-
ator in the town, and ignored the law: his slots
would make big pay-outs, just enough to keep
the key punters hooked.
The now-abolished Bundoran Town Council
(formerly known as Bundoran Urban Council)
has the job of licensing ‘the slots’. In 2009 it
adopted a submission from the slot-machine
operators – McEniff being the largest – to the
Department of Justice as its own submission.
The submission said Bundoran had 1,000
machines which are “an integral part of the over-
all Bundoran product, both on and off the
season, and a key reason why visitors continue
to be attracted to the town…the central impor-
tance of the sector is that it also directly supports
most of the rest of the tourism and service
sector.
McEniff treated the Council as family property,
and used electoral fraud. He put people living
outside Bundoran, some in the North, on the
voter register. On election day, cars would be
sent for them. They would vote, get a meal, then
a free bar.
The tactic was effective. For the 2004 local
elections, Bundoran Town Council had an elec-
torate of 1,528. At the 2002 census, there had
been 1,665 people in the town: 415 were under
eighteen. That gave a population over eighteen
of under 1,300.
Thirty-three names were
added to the register in Feb-
ruary 2004 after the
Electoral Review Court final-
ised late applications – but
these names did not go
through it, which is normal
practice.
All gave addresses at the
McEniff-owned Great North-
ern Hotel. General Manager
Philip McGlynn was
McEniff’s brother-in-law and a Fianna Fáil candi-
date for the Town Council. A journalist rang the
Great Northern Hotel to speak to one of the per
-
sons added to the Register. “She hasn’t been
working here in over a year and she’s gone to
America”, the receptionist who answered the
phone said.
McGlynn said he approached the Donegal
County Registrar after the Electoral Revision
Court.
“I had twenty people working in the Great
Northern Hotel, who had been working here two,
three, four years”, he said. “The County Regis-
trar said if these people filled in forms to register
they could send them to the County House in Lif-
ford. Nobody is living in the Great Northern Hotel
(our emphasis). They are employed in the Great
Northern Hotel and living in Bundoran. They
have got four Council houses off Bundoran Town
Council. Every one of these people is entitled to
vote”.
The Registration Department of Donegal
County Council said voters had to live at the
address at which they were registered.
In that election, Fianna Fáil won five of the nine
seats on the Council. The lowest-elected
received 79 first-preference votes. Three of the
five Fianna Fáilers were members of the McEniff
family. A dynasty.
Sean McEniff
hotelier and rogue king
of Bundoran’s slots
McEniff was by far the
largest slot machine
operator in the town,
and ignored the law
OBIT(CH)UARY
June 2017 1 5
While Bundoran Town Council existed, it was
the planning authority for the town. McEniff com-
panies, headed by McEniff himself, were the
biggest property owners. In an eight-year
period, the Council granted retention to five
unauthorised McEniff family developments at
one hotel. They included a swimming pool, built
without permission.
McEniff flouted other laws too. He was alleged
to have struck a cyclist when drunk-driving. His
car was brought over the Border to a workshop
in Beleek, Co Fermanagh, for quick repairs to the
bodywork.
There are also allegations that he interfered
in the possible murder investigation after six-
year-old Mary Boyle disappeared outside
Ballyshannon in 1977, believed murdered. When
investigating gardaí detained a suspect for
questioning, he “emphatically and uncondition-
ally” denied it was he who had rung the local
commander asking gardaí to ‘go easy’ when
questioning the suspect. At worst, robust ques-
tioning could have eliminated that suspect, and
allowed gardaí to focus on other lines of inquiry.
Certainly, there was a perception that the
Garda, whose ethos has been well described in
the report of the Morris Tribunal (2008), went
easy on McEniff. There is no evidence he had any
members paid off, but his bullying tactics on
them were as successful – and cheaper.
Ironically, for someone who made great show
at being a Fianna Fáil die-hard, McEniff had
begun as a strong Fine Gaeler. His late father,
John, had proudly worn the Blue Shirt in the West
Monaghan of the 1930s.
He made the political switch in the early
1960s. During a development he encroached on
public land at Brighton Terrace in Bundoran. At
the time, he was not the power he would later
become. Bundoran Urban District Council began
action against the unauthorised development.
But the resourcefulness was always there.
McEniff approached Neil Blaney, then Minister
for Local Government and a leading light in
Fianna Fáil’s machine, both locally and nation-
ally. Blaney slapped down the upstart Urban
Council, and McEniff’s development went ahead.
It was clear Fianna Fáil was the best choice for
self-interest, and McEniff made the jump remark-
ably enthusiastically.
Within Fianna Fáil, he identified with the par
-
ty’s Republican wing – though his Republicanism
never forced him to dissent from repressive leg-
islation the party introduced. He did give
employment to Republicans on the run from the
North, who found it difficult to find work –
though there were complaints he underpaid
them.
Certainly, McEniff was an energetic man. He
did not rule solely by intimidation. He had a cer-
tain charm. He was well known for paying local
tradesmen well, and promptly, for work done.
He’ll be missed by many in Donegal and was
Donegal Man of the Year in 1986, but ultimately
he was part of its problem.
The McEniff political brand was strong in Bun-
doran. Attempts to spread it failed. McEniff’s
only foray into wider politics was in the European
election of 1979. He made less than one-third of
a quota in the old Connaught-Ulster constitu-
ency, and was lowest of three candidates.
The abolition of Bundoran Town Council ended
his powerbase and the next generation is scat-
tered. It remains to be seen whether the gaming
and hotel empire he built can survive long-term
without him.
McEniff died in Dublin on 21 April. Bundoran
stood still for his funeral. Sadly he had been in
an induced coma since collapsing in water in the
Canary Islands where he had a business, in Octo-
ber last year. Times change, even in Donegal.
He did not rule solely by
intimidation. He had a
certain charm. He was
well known for paying
local tradesmen well,
and promptly
