Loyal supporters close ranks around Quinn family at Ballyconnell meeting

THEY STARTED to gather near the platform well before 4pm, a sombre, watchful crowd hugging the walls of Ballyconnell’s community centre.

People like Eddie and Betty Gargan who remembered when “grass was growing up in the middle of the streets of west Cavan”, before Seán Quinn came along.

And Seán Leonard, who bought sand and gravel from Quinn 40 years ago and saw him transform these counties from “a land fit for the emigrant ship to a land of milk and honey”.

To a passing tourist they could have been mourners at a country funeral awaiting the arrival of the hearse, a sense amplified by Fr Gerry Comiskey’s opening prayers – including a recitation of John O’Donohoe’s Prayer for a Prisoner for Seán Quinn jnr in Mountjoy – and Ciara Quinn’s words of thanks: “Whether you offered professional or financial help, whether you wrote or phoned, or simply said a prayer . . . ”.

Seated centrally on the platform, Seán jnr’s wife, Karen, chatted and smiled with Tyrone football manager, Mickey Harte, who talked about “a selective view of the truth, that’s going on in the media . . . ”

Rory Gallagher, introduced as a top scorer in Ulster football for three years and part of the Donegal management team, eulogised his “very honest, loyal”, straight-talking friend, Seán jnr.

Other personalities, such as former Irish and Leinster rugby player Shane Byrne, football manager Seán Boylan, Colm O’Rourke and Fr Brian Darcy (who said he was out of the country), sent messages of support and sympathy. Meanwhile, the placards declaring “Anglo My Arse” or “Seán Quinn for Tea Shock” or the righteous belligerence of one young man might have caused the tourist to reconsider the funeral scenario.

“I hope your report is fair and reflective, not like the last time you were here”, the young man said to this reporter. But I wasn’t here last time . . . “Well, your ilk,” he said turning round with a sharp nudge of an elbow.

During two hours of speeches in rain and deepening cold, ending well after 6pm with a lengthy, sometimes complex, address by Peter Quinn, the crowd of about 4,500 listened in rapt silence, as that media “ilk”, with its childish focus on “wedding cakes and clothes” and its view of Quinn marchers as “morons and gobshites”, “culchies and idiots”, was put to the sword, along with “criminal” “greedy” bankers, “gangster” sheriffs, Michael Noonan, Alan Dukes, Fintan O’Toole, most judges and the full house of TDs who failed to attend.

“At least the wedding cake was bought and paid for. It was meant for the wedding guests, not for the gate-crashers”, said MC Pádraig Donohoe. “Alan Dukes now owns the cake and he’s handing out slices to all his guests; a slice to Liberty Mutual, a slice to greedy Scottish financiers.

“When all is served out how many slices will be left for the people it was intended for . . ?”

Seated beside his wife and other family members to the left of the covered, makeshift stage, a tense and sometime tearful Seán Quinn rose to embrace his daughter Ciara after her rousing speech and declaration that “I, alongside my brother Seán and three sisters are the true and rightful owners of the Quinn group of companies”. Anglo Irish Bank, she said, “pumped €2.3 billion into our companies without asking us, without telling us . . .”

She finished to rapturous applause: “This is a war and when it is over, I and my family will still be standing.”

Speakers from Concerned Irish Citizens and People for Economic Justice reflected the experiences of others. They included a deeply distressed Margaret Hanrahan, a widow who borrowed from the ACC to buy land and talked affectingly about what happens when a receiver comes into your home. “They can go where they like, they can do what they like,” she said, barely controlling her tears. “Go home and look at your own home loans. Tomorrow you can be in our situation, you don’t realise how close you are to where I am . . . My daughter and I are facing court on Wednesday . . .”