Graham, Sean (John) Patrick (1936–86), bookmaker, was born at 90 Great George's Street, Belfast, on 14 April 1936, one of seven children of John Patrick Graham, bookmaker, and his wife Bridget (née Neill). He was educated at St Mary's CBS in Belfast. On leaving school he started to work for his father, who owned two betting shops in Belfast. By the early 1960s Graham had expanded his father's shops on a remarkable scale. From a headquarters at King St., Belfast, outlets were opened in most of the main provincial towns in the north of Ireland; by the late 1970s he had over thirty shops there. In 1968 he moved into the southern market when he opened a shop at Eden Quay, Dublin. This served as his southern headquarters, and when the Kilmartin chain went out of business Graham bought many of its shops, giving him ten southern outlets by the mid 1970s. His shops did a lot to revive ante-post betting (which had been slowly dying of neglect by bookmakers), by offering attractive odds on future races.
Graham was also equally famous as an on-course bookmaker, and held one of the most prominent pitches on the rails. He travelled the length and breadth of the country to attend race meetings and had a reputation as a fearless layer of bets. He was well respected by professional gamblers as a bookmaker who would not flinch from taking big bets. In the betting ring he was invariably one of the first to chalk up prices on any given race, and his catchy slogans and quick banter with racegoers ensured the odds he offered always received attention.
The 1970s were undoubtedly his heyday, when the Graham name earned widespread attention. This was in no small part due to the extensive advertising and sponsorship promotions undertaken by him. It was estimated that he ploughed back between £500,000 and £1 million into racing through the sponsorship route. One popular method of his was to guarantee the tote jackpot pool, which, although a rival to his own business, helped to generate greater interest among all racegoers and consequently larger betting revenues all round. He also provided buses for his shops’ customers to go to the races. His sponsorship embraced most of the racecourses of Ireland, and his name was particularly prominent at Down Royal and Downpatrick racecourses. He also sponsored racing in England, mainly at Cheltenham and Aintree. One notable publicity coup was his decision to sponsor most of the races run on the first Sunday to hold racing in Ireland (July 1985). Graham was also involved in publishing, and publications throughout the 1970s included the Sean Graham guide to Irish racing, the Sean Graham Irish Racing Annual (first published 1976), and the Irish Greyhound. As the last title shows, Graham was also involved in greyhound racing. In the late 1970s he was part of a three-man syndicate that bought Belfast's two greyhound stadiums, Dunmore Park and Celtic Park; the latter had in 1927 held the first greyhound racing ever staged in Ireland. He sold Celtic Park in the early 1980s after only a few years of ownership, but Dunmore Park continued as a greyhound racing venue. He suffered numerous health problems throughout his life and died in Belfast on 6 April 1986, aged 49, ten days after being admitted to hospital suffering from pneumonia. At the time, he was preparing to undertake a major expansion of his betting-shop business in the south.
He and his wife Maureen had six sons and one daughter. Two sons, Brian and Sean, continued to run the Sean Graham business after his death.