It Occurs to Me: Quinn Country

In the third episode of Quinn Country, after the re-enactment of the abduction and torture of Kevin Lunney, Sean Quinn uttered two sentences which destroyed any vestige of sympathy he may have garnered during the first two programmes.
“One thing I think that somebody should ask Kevin Lunney... why was he attacked?” and “I have nothing good to say about Kevin Lunney”.

That complete lack of empathy damned him in thousands of homes, and his constant references to a third party called Sean Quinn just reinforced the notion that here we were dealing with a massive ego, who in his own eyes, did very little wrong.
Just as telling was his wife’s outburst about Father O’Reilly as a “backstabber”.

I re-watched the programmes on RTÉ Player and not once did the priest refer to the Quinn family, only to a “godfather” who was funding the attacks. Why then did Mrs Quinn assume the reference was to a family member?

The same 75-year old Father O’Reilly was subsequently warned: “You’re next!” and he is now retired in Cavan.
Over 20 years ago, a journalist friend of mine who was investigating Cyril McGuinness (Dublin Jimmy) had a number of warnings to lay off…or else. McGuinness blatantly smoked in local pubs, despite the ban, and occasionally emptied the tills, but people were too terrified to try to stop him.

When Alan Dukes insulted ‘Border People’ about their penchant for violence, did he pause to think that the four men who were jailed were from Dublin? Dukes then ‘juked’ the hard questions from Claire Byrne as he spluttered rubbish on RTÉ.

Alan Dukes

Writer Colm Toibin was just as guilty of the same assumptions about people on the frontier, condescendingly accusing them of lacking “Metropolitan values”. I don’t know why Toibin was roped in by Trevor Birney for the series, as his Walking Along The Border book is very flawed. He came to the area with an agenda, with “Metropolitan values” ,and so his thesis was skewed from the start.

The best book by a long chalk is Darach MacDonald’s Hard Border. Birney would have added greater to his programmes by getting the sharp insight of the Clones man, with his years of practical and journalistic experience.

THE BORDER
Darach’s latest publication is Border - 1921-2021, which has a wonderful poem as its prologue. It should be required reading for Dukes and Toibin. Here’s a portion of it:
“We were bemused when it first appeared
That brand new border line that seared
Three hundred miles long, not half an inch thick
It would surely be gone in no more than a tick.

For that line was never meant to be
More than a temporary boundary.
We trusted Feetham, Fisher and MacNeill
To make huge transfers, not a backroom deal.

Fermanagh, Tyrone and Derry City left out
South Armagh and the Mournes moved to the south.
What would be left up north could never persist
And the border would vanish into our Celtic mist.

But a century later, it still stands square
Except up close where it’s not even there
An imaginary line that cuts to our bones,
Further back you go, the more real it becomes.

Still it lingers in the mind long after,
Framing those years of strife and slaughter,
A man-made feature of geography
Even Google now follows its trajectory.

Yet this line that circumscribes our lives
Exists in many forms and guises
Changing often it befuddles and deceives
And its districts come in all shapes and sizes.”

DEATH KNELL FOR RADIO FOYLE?
One controversy which has united politicians of all hues in the greater Derry and Strabane area is the proposed cuts in local radio programming, meaning much of the output will emanate from Belfast.
Following news that the BBC Radio Foyle staff face cuts and the Breakfast Show will be axed, SDLP councillor Rory Farrell declared it was “death by 1000 cuts which will ultimately lead to the complete closure of a local institution, which must be resisted at every opportunity”.

DUP Alderman Maurice Devenney added: “We have seen this in the past where they have tried cuts and had issues with Radio Foyle which delivers a local news, local issues and they do that very effectively. If this does happen and they get off with this I think it is the beginning of the end for Radio Foyle.”

UUP Alderman Derek Hussey made a very telling point when he proposed an amendment that BBC NI interim director Adam Smyth be invited to the council chamber before adding: “BBC Radio Ulster tends to be Belfast centric.”
Derek is right…I worked there and notwithstanding the Derry output, the shadow of Belfast always loomed large, and at times the attitude of the powers-that-be could be patronising, condescending and sanctimonious.

The late great Gerry Anderson was the glue that ensured there was BBC Radio Ulster on the Foyle Station. Tellingly, at his funeral, a former colleague confided: “This will be a big slice out of Foyle… if we didn’t have Hume or McGuinness to keep Belfast in check, Foyle would be doomed.”
Was he uncannily prophetic? The accountants in London will have the final say…and much as I hope it outlasts the number crunchers’ cold evaluation, I think Maurice Devenney might be closer to the truth.

A SORE (PENALTY) POINT!
A few years ago, after being caught doing 35 in a 30 mph zone in Sion Mills, I opted to pay £99 and sit through four hours of a speed awareness course, to avoid three penalty points and a £65 fine.
After about two hours, I was praying for a happy death. The chap doing the demonstration was English, very worthy, boring and treated all those present like a 1950’s schoolmaster. The comedian beside me from County Derry nearly lost the plot: “If I clocked him, sir, would I get away with doing another course?”
He stuck it out…as I did.
In any event, I’d like to take my hat off to one Thomas McKee who wrote the following letter to the Road Safety Partnership in Belfast:

“Dear Sir/Madam,
Thank you for your letter dated 5th November 2019 explaining that I am eligible for a speed awareness course costing £99 and four hours of my life. I have decided instead, to grudgingly accept your penalty of £65 and three penalty points for my transgression of driving at 37mph up the hill at Donaghadee Road, Newtownards on Saturday 19th October into one of your agents’ traps.
I have enclosed a cheque inside your letter, and you will notice I have taken the liberty of rolling it up very tightly to make it easier for you to stick it up your arse!
Yours Sincerely,
Thomas McKee!”
I wonder would McKee qualify as a Border person in Alan Dukes’ book?