T hey were poster boys for the boom, and now they're poster boys for the bust. But, unlike others, they have to live with the consequences of their actions. Up to a point. Meet the Stokes brothers or, if you will, Jedward with knobs on.

Simon and Christian Stokes are
35-year-old identical twins who appeared to epitomise the buccaneering spirit of the Celtic Tiger. They are well scrubbed and know how to wear a suit. In 1999, when the tiger was a pup, they opened a restaurant in Dublin which became a celebrated haunt. Bang Café was the place to be.

Everybody who knows them says the Stokes, like Jedward, are polite boys who exude genuine warmth. This, combined with their sense of fashion and good looks, meant they were made for poster-boy status. In 2001, the twins appeared on a programme called Boomtown, which was designed to celebrate successful Celtic cubs.

Inevitably, empire-building kicked in. When one Bang wasn't enough, they bought a company that owned the Clarendon Inn in Dublin's city centre. Away from the hard slog, the brothers drove the right cars, were seen in appropriately well-coiffed female company, and lived up to the image they had created.

The coolness the boys exuded was custom-made for tiger times. This was the age of entrepreneurs, when no real acumen was required to make a go of a business, or flip a property for quick profit. It was taken for granted that the twins had the Midas touch in the world's greatest city. Once, when asked about their business experience prior to Bang, Simon said they worked in their father's restaurant.

"I'd clean bathrooms in the morning. I worked behind the bar. We didn't mind because you have to learn all that stuff. The key to success is being willing to do everything yourself. You can't say, 'Oooo, I'm in a pretty suit, I can't do that'." Apart from helping out the old man, they made a crust in modelling, before opening Bang when they were 24 years of age.

Then, in 2008, another entrepreneurial leap. The buccaneering brothers leased a building on St Stephen's Green from the poster daddy of the boom, Johnny Ronan. They spent €3m refurbishing it, and opened Residence, a club for Celtic cubs. The social pages were agog.

Within months, the country was en route down the tubes and the Stokes' empire with it. Bang went bang, and the accounts revealed it had been shipping huge losses even before the economy turned.

The other company, which had owned the Clarendon, went into receivership. Residence was the next to go bang. What became apparent was the brothers' expertise was in image-making and all that jazz. The Midas touch had been a mirage.

Last July, Residence was taken over by somebody called Olivia Gaynor-Long. At the time she said she was keeping the Stokes twins on the payroll. Then, last week, it was announced the boys' services were no longer required in their dream club. Out the door and into the wilderness of a recession.

Their plight has evoked sympathy in the circles in which they moved. There is little sign of schädenfreude. On the face of it, the brothers are an example of the different fates that now await those who prospered during the bubble years, only to fall flat once the smoke cleared.

Bankers and senior civil servants walk away to enjoy fat pensions irrespective of the havoc they wreaked. The political stage is still occupied by people who were at the tiller during those illusionary days. As of yet, they have not paid a price. When, and if, they do, they will join others like Bertie Ahern and Charlie McCreevy on bloated pensions, which bear no resemblance to the realities of life in Ireland at the moment.

Meanwhile, those like the Stokes, who flew too close to the sun, leave the stage with next to nothing. For them, the market giveth and then the market taketh away. Unlike the bankers and politicians who championed bubble economics, most business people must endure the downside of the risk involved.

There is also, however, a darker element to the rise and fall of the twins. Last January, processing the receivership in the High Court, Judge Peter Kelly was scathing in his comments on the brothers.

They had traded using employees' tax money owed to the Revenue. Money had also been taken out of the company to make irregular loans to other companies associated with the brothers. The judge said it was a remarkable feature that the Residence club had never traded profitably but actually traded using tax monies and now owed €1.2m to the Revenue. This was "a form of thieving", Kelly said.

The brothers were also referred to in court as "delinquent directors" and the judge forwarded the case to the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement.

Effectively, the twins were cooking the books in an attempt to defy the realities of business. In doing so, they were denying their employees the benefits that accrue from PRSI payments. Nobody but the judge has voiced sympathy for these workers in one of the lowest-paying sectors of the economy. In their determination to defy the realities of business, to live up to the image they had created, the twins had gone down a dark, dirty alley.

In most other developed countries which offer fidelity to full-on capitalism, the Stokes' behaviour would be rigorously examined for possible criminality. Precedence tells us that won't be the case here.

One wonders how the law might have dealt with a disgruntled employee who took it upon himself to steal some property from an employer in the catering sector.

While the Stokes twins have had to walk away with their tails between their legs, the concept of taking responsibility for one's actions is still a relative one in this country.

mclifford@tribune.ie