It Occurs To Me: The state of the party?

                                             The state of the party?

CAPTION: Mary O’Rourke, but she was refreshingly candid

I didn’t see much kerfuffle about it up here but Fionnán Sheehan’s feature in the Indo last week should have had tongues wagging in Donegal, if only out of curiosity. 

The piece was entitled “Olwyn Enright back in the Fine Gael fold and now shaping Simon Harris’s election campaign ticket…Former Fine Gael TD returns to political front line as Taoiseach’s trouble-shooter 14 years after stepping away from the Dáil”. 

Sheehan added that she is “generally expected to be named Fine Gael’s director of elections for the general election, whenever the Taoiseach calls the date.” Olwyn is of course married to our own Joe McHugh and according to Fionnán, her “return has not been universally welcomed within the party”.

One FG TD was quoted: “She made a mess out of Kerry. It’s now toxic down there. People don’t know her. She has been retired from politics. She is not immersed in Fine Gael and has been removed from the organisation. And just look at the state of the party in Donegal, that’s a basket case.” 

Is it really? The up and coming election should be interesting.

                                     Remembering Mary O’Rourke

Staying with politics and the death of Mary O’Rourke. I anchored a Christmas TV Special in 2014, which included Mary, as well as Donncha O’Dulaing, Mike Denver,  Marc Roberts, soprano Helen Hutchinson and many more. 

They were all entertaining on the night, but Mary was something else: sharp, straight to the point, warm and engaging. She bluntly told me that - in the aftermath of the press onslaught on both Brian Lenihans - she was somewhat “wary” of journalists distorting the truth. 

Two things mitigated in my favour - firstly, her driver, a retired garda, had worked with my father somewhere in the county many years before, and this really broke the ice, so she was delighted that there was a connection. Also crucially, I had read and researched her 2012 memoir Just Mary and was well briefed.

Mary O’Rourke was refreshingly candid

I went back to the book last week when I heard of her passing ,and a number of features jumped out again. As Minister for Education, she didn’t get the silent treatment at teacher union conferences, and as she explained:

“...that Easter at the conferences of the teachers’ unions, I was given a fool’s pardon, so to speak. I distinctly remember going to the INTO’s Annual Congress in Ennis that year. As a school principal in a small rural school in County Clare, my paternal grandfather (PJ Lenihan) had been a firebrand union adherent, noted for his radical views and his sterling espousal of the INTO. In true Lenihan fashion, he had fallen out with the hierarchy and had had various spats with authority, so there was nothing new in the spark of antiauthoritarianism which was to re-emerge in our family in the following generations. All of this was mentioned in speeches at the conference and I felt a glow of fondness for my grandfather, who had in his own way blazed a trail, allowing me a safe entry to this, my first teachers’ union conference.”

After her brother Brian made the ‘mature reflection’ remark during the presidential election of 1990, all hell broke loose and Mary reflects: “To my mind, there is no doubt that Charlie Haughey did Brian a great wrong in having him sacked from Cabinet. Of course, Haughey would say afterwards that it was through loyalty to the party that he had taken that course of action; that he had no other choice because the PDs were calling the shots, and so on. It wasn’t the case, however, that Brian and Charlie Haughey were ever very close friends, because they weren’t — they were political allies. Some may say that Brian lost face at a certain point, with his ‘on mature reflection’ remarks (when he appeared to contradict what he had said earlier about having made the calls to President Hillery). But in my view, he was done for by that stage anyway: someone had it in for him, and wanted him to go.”

READ NEXT: It Occurs To Me: He who pays the piper calls the tune

As regards her nephew Brian who contracted pancreatic cancer while still in office, Mary reflects: “Then one day, about ten days before he died, Brian called me and said, ‘Mary, I’m sleeping all the time. I sleep twelve hours and I get up and then I want to sleep again.’ Trying to be reassuring, I told him that sleep is good for one, which of course we all know. I remember quoting to him that line from Macbeth: ‘Sleep that knits the ravell’d sleeve of care’... I have always thought these are the most beautiful words, and so apt too, because of course you can go to bed careworn and yet wake up refreshed. Brian immediately asked me to say the line again, and, when I did, he said, ‘You were always a good teacher’. As I write now, the tears flow fast and I remember again the earnest 12-year-old boy whom I tutored in Latin all those years ago. This was the last conversation I had with Brian.” 

Agree or disagree with Mary O’Rourke, but she was refreshingly candid and devoid of the PR clouds that envelop far too many of the current lot.

                                                 De…‘Termon’...ation

Termon Intermediate winning captain Ricky Gallagher told our own Peter Campbell on Sunday that there would be “no mention” of Four Masters or Glenswilly in my column this week. There you have it, Ricky, no mention! What an achievement for Termon, and let's remind ourselves how young the club is. 

In 1963, Patrick Helferty, Seamus Harkin and Johnny McCafferty approached the "Master" in Termon National School, Danny McBride, with the view of forming a GAA club in the area. Danny called a meeting of everybody interested in GAA locally in the old school in Kilmacrennan in December 1963. The first games the club played were challenge games, and the team wore borrowed yellow jerseys from the then Letterkenny Technical College! It wasn't until 1967 that Termon wore the Maroon and White jersey for the first time. Yellow would have never suited the tough Termonites! 

Three-in-a-row County Champions, the Termon Ladies team was only founded in 1992. Who can forget them being the first ever senior club All-Ireland title won by a Donegal club and Geraldine McLaughlin scoring an amazing 3-8? In the past few weeks, the A team, B Team and the aforementioned ladies have achieved great glory in one fell swoop. Master Danny must be smiling down. When Ricky’s grandad (who would have been 97 tomorrow) won the Junior County title with Downings in 1957, he famously remarked that “the game lasted 60 minutes and the celebrations 60 days”...should be some party in Termon!

                                Doomed, Mr Galligan, Doomed!

I’m sure many of you remember the great Scottish actor John Laurie who played

Private James Frazer, a Home Guard platoon member and undertaker in Dad’s Army. 

His great catchphrase was "We're doomed, Mr Mainwaring, doomed!”. 

A few weeks ago, I underwent something which is just less nerve jangling than a visit to the dentist, the annual visit to my MOT centre. As it happened, I sat in the queue behind a long black hearse which only added to my sense of foreboding. He appeared to pass the test no problem, so by way of building a rapprochement with the examiner, I said: “Begod, when I got caught behind a hearse there, I thought I was doomed!” He looked at me, lifted a quizzical eyebrow and laughed, “Sure if you are, you have the right yock to take you out!” As it happened, I passed…as distinct from passing away.

A week later, driving from Clones to Cavan, I was overtaken by another hearse, and as I was going at a fairly steady 60mph, he must have been motoring around the 65-70mph, something I have never witnessed in my life, as I’ve often slowed down behind a hearse respectably crawling along at the head of a cortege. In any event, he took the left turn towards Ballyhaise and as he reduced speed, I was able to discern that he didn’t have a ‘passenger’ onboard, thank God! Then incredibly, as I neared Cavan Town, I met another hearse tearing towards me on the other lane, bound for the aforementioned Ballyhaise or Belturbet. Only in Cavan! 

A friend from the area, apt to venture an expert opinion on everything, reckoned that “Since the Lakelands Crematorium was opened in 2015, we’re shockin’ busy. They’re coming from all angles!” 

Well, that’s that sorted…funeral  Mass in County Donegal somewhere sometime in the future…cremation in Cavan, and ashes spread liberally between Mulroy Bay, Teelin Bay and the Foyle. Yes indeed, going ‘from all angles’…hopefully towards the angels!