If you do a search for Ballyconnell on Google, you shouldn't be terribly surprised to see that my hometown comes up with nearly all of the results. It is gratifying to think that something that works on a global scale like Google, can still be concerned with a small town in the middle of Ireland. Digital e-hub notwitstanding, Ballyconnell doesn't usually rate very highly in the world news. In fact, apart from the constant jokes about out potholes and our farmers, Cavan doesn't seem to have very much going for it. It will never be the Silicon Valley of Ireland and (thankfully) Dublin's every expanding waisteline will probably never reach our little village. But Cavan aint all bad, we have at least one small gem hidden inside.
Several years before I was even born (which isn't stretching the boundaries of time very much), a young man in Derrylin decided to do the unthinkable and not farm his farm. Parents were shocked, neighbours were given new scadal to spread and a community was outraged. What else would you do with a piece of barren wasteland in county Fermanagh, they asked? Dig it, he told them. And dig it he did.
To cut a long story short, the young man did dig his field. And what he found underneath was to change both his fortune and the fortune of the border counties. Not a pot of gold, not a new precious metal, just stones. Lots of stones that most folk would have cursed for spoiling the soil. However, it turns out that people need stones, they come in useful for building and suchlike and so the man made a mint digging stones and selling them. In fact, he made quite a few mints and soon the sight of a muck-covered green lorry tearing through the roads of Cavan became a common sight.
Not content with running his little business, the man decided to expand, using the money he made from quarrying to set up new businesses. You see, stones are useful for all sorts of things, and Mr. Quinn realised that he could make more money selling stones in different forms than just as pure stone. Today, accountants and people with business degrees would call this value added reselling and internal business product consumption. Mr. Quinn called it prestress and building materials and soon there were more green lorries travelling round Cavan, carrying all sorts of construction material. The empire began.
Within a few years, the Quinn company was churning out prestress, portland cement, aerated blocks, concrete rooftiles and general quarry and concrete products. Tarmac was added to the shopping list because of the massive road expansion taking place in Ireland (but mostly in Dublin). Somewhere along the line, a lightbulb went off and Mr. Quinn decided the cement companies in Ireland were making too much money from him so he decided to make his own (cement, not money). No Mr. Quinn the hairdressers and taxi drivers of Cavan said, cement is too expensive to make and Blue Circle have the market all tied up. But away went the accountants and they accounted long and hard before deciding that €30m for a cement factory might not be a bad idea, so they built one. And in the middle of the hills of Cavan, not far from the patch of farmland in Fermanagh where things started off, rose a cement factory. More green lorries were added to the fleet.
Along the way Litepac was picked up and saved from extinction, a five megawatt windfarm was added (this before the likes of Eirtricity and co. were very productive), a dodgy bar in the capital was renovated and renamed Q-Bar and some hotels were added to the shopping basket. The cash kept rolling in and the cement kept rolling out, so it was decided to challenge CRH (the primary cement producers in Ireland). The old cement factory was decomissioned and a new, bigger factory was built featuring all the mod-cons that a modern cement factory should have. More hotels were bought but none met the exceedingly high standards of Mr. Quinn so he built his own. And so the Slieve Russel was conceived, a four star symbol of the change in status of Ballyconnell. It quickly because the social centre for the town (country club for the adults and disco for the teenages), holiday resort for the upper middle class of Ireland, premier golf club for those that do and business conference centre for the multi-nationals. Coca Cola conferences, O2 meetings, European presidency functions; they all came to what the town nicknamed the Russel.
Time passed by and years turned into decades and still the group grows stronger, changing day by day. Hotels in England, and later Europe, were brought into the family. Bars throughout Dublin were quietly picked up before the drinking revolution of the 90's and somewhere along the lines, the insurance companies were kicked to boot and Quinn Direct was formed. In a striking (but slighly leaky) building outside Cavan, one of Irelands fastest growing and cheapest insurance companies grew. Investing in cutting edge technology and lots of phone lines, the company could support customers all over Ireland without having offices in every town. Now the company has central offices in the Enniskillen Co. Fermanagh, O Connell St, Dublin, Manchester and (recently) the Landmark/Q-Tower in Blanchardstown. The HQ remains in Cavan, as a sign of Quinn's loyalty to his homeland.
It was once said that we cannot see into the future past a decision we cannot yet understand. It is true to say that only Mr. Quinn and his advisors can predict what they have planned for the group. Certainly, the expansion will not stop now. The Quinn Group is one of the most powerful companies in the country and, in many markets, remains the only wholly Irish owned company competing.
Ballyconnell, Derrylin, Swanlinbar and all those other little villages that you won't have heard of have a lot to thank Mr. Quinn for. Not least the massive upturn in the employment blackspot of the country, not least the millions of Euro brought into the towns as a result of the trade, nor the dedication to keeping the company located there and resisting the urge to move everything to Dublin (or further). For anyone who has met the man and his family will tell you - the best thing about him is his normality. Meet him on the street or in the pub and you wouldn't be aware that the next morning he could be flying the Group helicopter to Europe to eye up a new hotel, or just back from a trip to England to see the latest cement producing innovations. Talk to his children (now mostly grown up) and you'd be unaware that their family supports thousands of other families around the country.
Thank you.
