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AT A TIME when many in Ireland are baying for the blood of Seán FitzPatrick, the sight of thousands of people demonstrating their desire for ‘justice’ for the bankrupt former billionaire businessman Seán Quinn might cause a casual observer of Ireland to think that they want to see him imprisoned for the contempt he has shown the Irish state, the Irish courts and perhaps most importantly the Irish people.
That he mismanaged his insurance business to such an extent that it led directly to all Irish insurance consumers paying an insurance levy of two per cent (but this will probably increase to four per cent); that he was the central figure in the illegal loans designed to prop up Anglo Irish Bank when it was becoming obvious that the bank was little more than a pyramid scheme; that he was a property speculator with half a billion euros worth of loans would all add to the expectation that the demonstration was hostile to Quinn.
This impression that by ‘justice’ for Seán Quinn, the crowd was hoping to string him up from the nearest lamppost would have been supported by the fact that a phalanx of those who represent ‘real’ Ireland – the Catholic Church, the GAA and Sinn Féin – endorsed the calls for ‘justice’.
When that casual observer of Irish society discovers that in fact the crowd was there to support Seán Quinn and his family, she might wonder what is wrong with Ireland and the Irish. The support shown to Quinn by thousands of people in Cavan last Sunday, I think rightly, offends many people. The reaction to an excellent article by Fintan O’Toole highlights how deeply shocked at least some parts of Irish society are at the support Quinn got in Cavan.
It seems to show a disrespect for the law, for the position of ordinary Irish people, a lack of solidarity and a lack of understanding of the mess we’re in and how we got here.
Many will think it typical of an Irish culture of loyalty to the local chief. We will think of how many people in Tipperary still vote for Michael Lowry in such numbers regardless of controversy over his actions in office or we’ll think of how Beverley Flynn also managed a comfortable re-election after an outcry in some areas over her dealings with the Revenue.
We assume it’s something to do with Irish political culture, where we tend to treat any offence to a local as an offence to the locality. The wagons are circled – we protect our own. He may be a fool/thug/crook (delete as appropriate) but he’s our fool/thug/crook.
This is the ‘amoral localism’ that the late political scientist, Peter Mair referred to. We can explicitly see this in the reaction of some senior GAA figures, where they say that Quinn is a GAA man and that the GAA stands by its own.
Many in urban Ireland assume this is a trait peculiar to traditional Ireland. I wonder if Seán Quinn were being prosecuted by the British, and had he brought down a British bank, how we would have reacted.
Then maybe we think this blind loyalty as a peculiarly Irish trait. I’m not sure that it is. But even that famous Irish loyalty to the tribe is not as strong as we sometimes think. It is not an unconditional loyalty. Consider of how quickly the famously loyal Fianna Fáil dumped Bertie Ahern as soon as he no longer fulfilled the party’s needs.
The observation that the support for Quinn in Cavan is a pathology of our culture is too simplistic.
Most people in Cavan if asked about the Quinn situation in abstract terms, I suspect, would agree that what this businessman did was a disgrace and that he should be pursued for all his assets. But we, all of us, are suckers for a story. Add the personal story and it’s different. And Seán Quinn has a good story.
He’s one of us, a man of the soil, (he was even described as a True Gael – whatever that means) who, through hard work built a vast business empire. And unlike others who did it, he never left his roots. He gave the impression of being a simple man, who was being persecuted, and worse whose family – including ‘a simple housewife’ – was being pursued in a state-sponsored ‘witch hunt’. He can argue, however implausibly, that he was willing to work to build up his empire again, but he wasn’t even allowed to try.
I wonder if Quinn had been exposed as a paedophile, what would the reaction have been? I suspect there would have been little sympathy for him, because we now ‘understand’ that crime. It’s less easy to fathom contracts for difference.
We also forget that Seán Quinn has a huge impact on Cavan. Pass through Cavan town and it is obvious. He owned everything, and that which he didn’t own he sponsored. When most people either worked for Quinn or lived with someone who worked for Quinn he is going to be popular. When his businesses collapsed as a result of what I would see as Quinn’s stupid business decisions and greed, it wasn’t Seán Quinn who let the staff go, it was a receiver. What Quinn gave to the town is tangible, and has his name all over it – literally.
What he has taken away is of course much greater, but it’s less clearly associated with Quinn, and the pain is also spread out among Irish people as a whole. The same is true of Michael Lowry and the Flynn family. They delivered for their constituency and are rewarded for that. So Cavan isn’t that peculiar – not in that way, at least!
Eoin O’Malley teaches Irish politics at the School of Law and Government, Dublin City University. He is the author of Contemporary Ireland (Palgrave 2011).
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Shelly, if your standard of writing is anything to go by then your results should be excellent. Superb piece.
Best of luck Shelley and all the other leaving cert students.
You are correct that these results are not the end of the world, they are a stepping stone, question tomorrow will bring is which direction you will step towards.
I did my leaving 7 years ago, and still remember the fear in the weeks leading up to the results. I didn’t get what I wanted (perfectly respectable points etc, but 15 off what I needed), but I wanted to stress to ALL the LC students that there is ALWAYS another way in to the area you want. I ended up doing a PLC which fed into a degree course, and now I have better degree than I would have gotten had I gotten the points.
Please don’t get too bogged down in tomorrow, it really isn’t the end of the world.
Good luck to you all!!
Well said Lauren
If this was an essay for the English Leaving Cert Paper One, I’d have given her about a B3.
Just wait until all of these naive, apprehensive sods have to fend for themselves in the real world. A bit of tension over Leaving Cert results will seem like a walk in the park by comparison with struggling to get a job, pay rent and afford food and bills for oneself. Enjoy the scrounger days while you can, teenagers!
Whether this is an A or a B grade article depends on the ‘Purpose’. Remember? Purpose, Coherence of Delivery, Aesthetic Use of Language, Mechanics.
Dinosaurs –
Skinny at one end
Fat in the middle
and skinny at the far end. Full stop.
Sorry – I just thought it would be better to say something more sensible than the crap Orly has to say…………. get a life child ….. and perhaps a friend – you’re going to need some with that negative attitude………
I had all but forgotten P.C.L.M.! For one thing, the headline of the article; that which gives it “Purpose”, is a sentence which doesn’t make sense and doesn’t fit the appropriate criteria for a headline, displaying a lack of capital letters and questionable syntax. I should read:
“Fearing Expectations of Failure – How the Wait for the Leaving Certificate Results Feels” or something like that. What is there is just appalling.
Moreover, the “Wednesday” theme is unconvincing and juvenile – a Junior Cert tactic, perhaps; never something you would employ for your Leaving Certificate or at third level.
Peter, not having friends is definitely the biggest problem faced in the real world, after the Leaving Certificate. Oh woe, how I wish I had a friend!
:P
Agreed with the above poster that you’ve nothing to worry about if this is how you write. Come Monday afternoon, results will be gone and done and dusted.
the bell curve is there for a reason. statistically, everyone wants to do the same courses. if you want to be different, then you have to think outside the bell curve. would be interested to know what your top choices were on cao form were?
I’m getting my LC results tomorrow too. Oddly enough, I didn’t have that familiar looming feeling right until yesterday, I always thought I did much better than I needed to. Now I’m not so sure. Point is my results didn’t suddenly become worse overnight but my attitude changed, upon seeing nervous Leaving Certs and reading wonderful articles such as this. One thing you got to do is feel auspicious about tomorrow and don’t succumb to general panic.
It will all work out in the end, if it’s not working out it’s not the end!
P.S. Lovely Aesthetic language.
And in case any of you good people were wondering how Shelley got on??
600 well deserved points
worth 420 points in old money.
Rememer Shelly…… Trinners is for Winners!
WIT, TIT, LIT et al is for Losers!……………..
Funny…I know more people who’ve graduated from TCD who are now out of work than other colleges like DIT/DCU etc. Maybe if their courses were slightly more applicable to modern industry it wouldn’t be so….
Am I the only one who keeps having nightmares about tomorrow? The last one I failed everything except for Irish and…erm ..footing turf…which I got an A1 in…I think i’m spending too much time in the bog
I kept having nightmares for at least fifteen years. Mind you, I failed. Twice.
Its going to be the longest Tuesday of our lives.. isnt it?
The leaving cert is out dated. College students do assessments and exams throughout the year plus are able to repeat the exam again a couple of months later if they fail but we put our young kids through 5 years to 6 years of secondary school just so they can sit one exam – have a bad day and fail and have to repeat the full year.
Come on, if the college structure is good enough for our future doctors, lawyers why can’t it be used in secondary school?
How many teens have committed suicide over the leaving cert? One is too much!
Time for a change!
I am very glad you wrote this. One extremely high stakes exam can not accurately measure the knowledge, intelligence, or strengths of a person, yet it really can effect the rest of your life. It is completely unreasonable. I am writing an article about depression and suicide caused by leaving cert stress and results, and would love to hear from people.
It can only serve those who are good at taking tests, and it robs them of the joy of learning when test cramming becomes the norm.
If this article is any indicator, I’m sure you’ll do just fine. One thing to remember though is in some industries, your leaving cert does follow you around! No matter how much under graduate or post grad studies you do, companies still ask about your leaving cert results and from speaking to my recruitment department in work, it is a factor for applications. I’m speaking from experience in Accounting and I have a masters in the subject.
Shelley definitely got an A in English anyway!
Oh Shelley I’m so proud of you for writing this article!! It really sums up how most of us are feeling, and I too counted my weeks by Wednesday!
And Shelley definitely deserves an A in English, judging by all the work she put in the past two years :)
Good luck Shelley! I agree with the above that you will have nothing to worry about, what a fantastic piece of writing x
You can actually do many PLC courses without an LC (despite the name!).
i still get anxiety dreams about the leaving cert and im 25!
Haha, so do I! Only recently I dreamed I was being made sit the English Paper 2, but hadn’t read the texts!! Good luck to everyone, unfortunately the nerves are a rite of passage :(
The Leaving Cert. has been around for a while but most useful things we know have been around for much longer and evolved over millions of years. LC is a fairly short chapter in the big book. Basically, what I’m saying is that in the big picture, it isn’t significant at all.
Without a Leaving Cert you’re fecked, You’ll be lucky if you can get job packing shelves in Tesco!
I really enjoyed reading this piece , very well written and it brought back my own memories of the leaving cert results looming….that was 31 years ago…. Wow ! Well my son is waiting for his results tomorrow and I have no doubt that he did his best and it all boils down to the points system and will his efforts gain him a place in his chosen college/ University? We will have to wait and see. . . .
Good luck to every one who are awaiting their results and remember it is a stepping stone not the end , but a beginning to moving forward.
Well said Shelly. Best of luck tomorrow. Nearly over Thank God. x
There is a life after the Leaving Certificate. Remember that!
I remember only to well the fear in me the day I got my results 4 years ago. The 10 minute walk down to the school that felt over an hour, all the way getting phone calls. It seemed for every person happy there was one disappointed. When I got down I went in to the vice principle to pick up that brown envelope and sat in the tea room chatting my friends and after 2 cups of tea I finally gathered the courage to open it! Thankfully I got my points and went to NUIG. I was thrilled! I checked it the next year and I would not have gotten into the same course a year later had I tried. I would have missed out by 5 points!
Through out the summer before that day was the best of my life so far! No cares, no more school and if I’d not gotten into NUIG I would have been in AIT. I wasn’t pushed at the time
Well, after reading this article, I at least know one person who’s getting a big fat A1.
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