Manufacturing consent in Quinn country

Four years after the Quinn Group was seized by its lenders, a consortium of local business people are trying to buy it back.

The Quinn cement factory would be part of the new QBRC consortium deal.

I have five small children: of course I worried, said John McCartin. ''At the beginning, I felt I was putting my head in the crocodile's mouth.

It is easy to understand McCartin's fears. Since the Quinn Group was seized from its founder Sean Quinn in 2010, the sprawling manufacturing business had been subject to a sustained campaign of sabotage, violence and intimidation.

McCartin has spent the past five months assembling a consortium of ...