Will any Irish Politician be 'Thatchered' on their passing?

Raiser

I'm sure that most people would agree that the glee and celebrations from so many quarters on the passing of Thatcher is distasteful - But it is true that as Willie Shakespeare once said, 'the evil that men do lives after them' and certainly Thatcher seems to have taken every opportunity to birth and nurture legions of vitriolic enemies and critics throughout her career - a fact that makes the tawdry situation very easily understood by all.

- I was wondering has this nation yet produced a figure, political or otherwise, who will set the champagne corks popping on their demise?

godtabh

all the current ones

shockwave

Phil Hogan.

biko

We'll just have to wait and see.

VinLieger

I popped a cork when charlie passed and ill do the same for his apprentice bertie

conorhal

Wasn't there a youtube video of some tool dancing on Charlie Haughey's grave that caused a lot of controversy a couple of years ago?

Reekwind

Politicians actually have to do something in order to be either vilified or lauded. I don't see any Irish politician breaking out of their comfortable slouch to do something as bold as express a radical opinion, never mind act on one

Birneybau

Bertie.

Bertie, Bertie, Bertie!

johnny_knoxvile

our very own Iron Lady...
the lady that set a million "chubby chaser's" hearts a flutter, the human tsunami when she gets excited...

Mary Harney.

mike65

Bertie Aherne will be nearly forgotten by the time he dies I suspect.

EuskalHerria

conorhal wrote: »

Wasn't there a youtube video of some tool dancing on Charlie Haughey's grave that caused a lot of controversy a couple of years ago?

What was the controversy? Was he/she dancing badly?

VinLieger

mike65 wrote: »

Bertie Aherne will be nearly forgotten by the time he dies I suspect.

One would hope but as hes an ex-taoiseach it will of course be news, although i really hope he doesnt get a state funeral. Fitzgerald deffinitely deserved one, but haughey didnt and bertie deffinitely doesnt.

L.Jenkins

Raiser wrote: »

- I was wondering has this nation yet produced a figure, political or otherwise, who will set the champagne corks popping on their demise?

Enda and Eamon have made a good go of it so far. I'm sure Bertie and Brian have made a good go of it as well.

foggy_lad

At least half of those clowns should be thatched into prominent buildings around the country - Lest we forget their sins!

Bertie, Harney, Gormless, O'Rourke, Martin and several more including many from the labour party who just don't have the backbone to stand on their own.

Sergeant

Itzy wrote: »

Enda and Eamon have made a good go of it so far.

What are you on about?

Nodin

VinLieger wrote: »

One would hope but as hes an ex-taoiseach it will of course be news, although i really hope he doesnt get a state funeral. Fitzgerald deffinitely deserved one, but haughey didnt and bertie deffinitely doesnt.

...given the turnout for CJ Haugheys lying in state, it would seem to have been counterproductive.

GerB40

I know its been said but Bertie Ahern, Bertie Ahern, Bertie Ahern.. A thousand times Bertie Ahern.. The effect he had on Irish politics is still felt today and will be felt for decades to come. When he does pass away the country will still probably be in debt. Because of him and his cronies. Ok rant over...

Amirani

I don't think any of them had the same sort of negative impact on certain groups in society as Thatcher. Bertie was an economic illiterate who spent recklessly to the detriment of the country. I'm not sure his motives were all that bad though, indeed he was quite popular during the boom times and its only in hindsight that most of the villification takes place.

Anyone who suggests Enda and the likes don't have a clue what they're talking about.

smash

Birneybau wrote: »

Bertie.

Bertie, Bertie, Bertie!

People will never treat him like Thatcher. Sure we all love a rogue. :rolleyes:

The Backwards Man

Donegal's Tony Blair maybe. None of our own have ever really worked hard enough to be reviled though.

GerB40

henry_sellers wrote: »

how was the ubber populist aherne comparable to maggie ?

There is no comparison, Maggie was way worse. But that's not what the OP was asking. The question was would any Irish politician be "Thatchered" i.e. divide the nation post death. Haughey definitely did and unless Ireland seriously changes so will Bertie..

StewartGriffin

I'd say Leo Varadker has the ambition and ruthless streak to be an Irish Thatcher. But first FG will have to get annihilated at the next election, he be elected leader, then somehow become Taoiseach with an overall majority.
He will need to use all of his dark arts.

true

The Backwards Man wrote: »

None of our own have ever really worked hard enough to be reviled though.

None of our own worked, full stop!

Reaction from around the world mourns Mrs T.'s passing...although you would not think it given the propoganda here. Even the Chinese p.m. admired her and said she was a woman of her word. Apart from the predictable admiration from world leaders this was some reaction from unexpected quarters:

Germany
"She was tough. On herself. On us. On Britain. For the sake of Britain," writes Norbert Koerzdoerfer in the tabloid Bild. " But she was admired."

In the news weekly Spiegel, Christoph Scheuermann calls Mrs Thatcher "the great divider, who irrevocably smashed the British consensus around a convergent society, and split the country into right and left halves, into the haves and have-nots. Into those who can and those who should just give up, because there is no place for the unproductive."
A commentary by Thomas Schmid in Die Welt says: "With aplomb she cut back the trade unions and woke the country from its royalist-socialist sleep. But for Thatcher - as for many - her greatest strength was also a weakness. She readied Britain for the capitalism of the financial markets, but also took her country closer to deindustrialisation. Eagle-eyed about attempts to inflate the EU into a superstate and its unctuous idealisation, she reined in the EU expansionists - but also discredited the EU in her own country." But, he concludes, "like no other politician of the past century, she got by without jiggery-pokery, touchy-feeliness and collective pathos. This alone guarantees her place in history."

South Africa The last apartheid-era president, FW de Klerk, is quoted in Business Day as saying: "Although she was always a steadfast critic of apartheid, she had a much better grasp of the complexities and geo-strategic realities of South Africa than many of her contemporaries. She consistently, and correctly, believed that much more could be achieved through constructive engagement with the South African government than through draconian sanctions and isolation. She also understood the need to consider the concerns and aspirations of all South Africans in their search for constitutional consensus."

France In a blog post on Le Figaro, Pierre Rousselin writes that Margaret Thatcher "not only pulled the United Kingdom out of a seemingly hopeless state of decline. She left behind a valuable legacy across the British Isles and across ideological borders: driven by bright ideas and a flawless determination, a Western democracy can achieve recovery."

Italy
"Margaret Thatcher was one of the most praised and reviled political figures in modern British and international history, and the only person after Winston Churchill capable of taking on the role of leader of the conservatives. She was a revolutionary who dismantled the post-war welfare state and an implacable anti-communist.
Gianni Rotti, in La Stampa, writes: "Aristocrats and intellectuals alike detested the bourgeois virtues of the future Baroness: 'prim', as they say in English, rigid, inflexible, sitting calmly with her handbag in her lap… The grandchildren of those who used to listen to The Clash and had the Thatcher Dracula poster over their beds, yesterday held her responsible, on Twitter and in blogs, for the 2008 financial crisis and for today's unemployment."

Russia Writing in Kommersant, Maksim Yusin says "Lady Thatcher was respected even in the USSR, even though she was an irreconcilable ideological opponent of the first Soviet State … [She] addressed Soviet viewers uncensored and uncut. And this became a sensation, and destroyed many stereotypes."

"Her extremely decisive political style will remain in people's minds as the scalpel of a surgeon, who ruthlessly leaves behind gruesome scars," says an article in Izvestiya. "The world is facing previously unseen consequences of the expansion of global speculative financial capitalism which brought us the destructive crisis of 2007-2008. And this is also the consequence of Thatcher's neo-liberal reforms to a large degree.

"Few female politicians were able to turn their system of views into a school of thought, and, if you like, an applied philosophy. Few iron ladies managed to remain ladies in power," reads an article by Vladimir Mikheyev in Trud.

China A commentary in the leading state newspaper, the People's Daily, reads: "Faced with the weak economy, she launched a series of broad reforms from which the British are still benefiting today. Mrs Thatcher, the most distinguished female politician of the 20th century, has left the world with glory and controversy. An era has ended."

India"Thatcher's greatest achievement was to change economics in the face of toxic politics, and then change the politics of her country itself. Whenever anyone needs to find an example of what politics of conviction - the conviction informed by a faith in the market and in entrepreneurship - can achieve in a democracy, Thatcher would be a natural candidate," says an article in India's Economic Times.

Middle EastAn opinion piece in Iran's reformist Sharq paper reads: "The Iron Lady largely put the longstanding tradition of collective management aside and instead ran the tradition of individual leadership and management. If Thatcher had appeared in a third world country, her followers and supporters would have stayed in power after two decades. The final analysis of Thatcher's experience showed that democracy and the people's vote is the last word in Western societies."

"There is a rare kind of political leader who … has the ability and will to implement unpopular policies and leave their mark for many decades and their policies thereafter become acceptable or adopted in one way or the other. One of these was Margaret Thatcher," reads a piece in the London-based Arabic-language Al-Sharq al-Awsat.

Raiser

conorhal wrote: »

Wasn't there a youtube video of some tool dancing on Charlie Haughey's grave that caused a lot of controversy a couple of years ago?

What are the queues like?

Apanachi

"Thatchered" I like that word, think I'll add that one to my vocabulary

Richard Hillman

People just said they were having a party when Thatcher dies to sound anti-establishment, hip, cool etc. If you looked at the people celebrating on the streets, they were basically crusties that never integrated with society. It was all posturing and attention seeking.

When Bertie ****s off, i'll say **** him and carry on with my day. I can be nauseated by RTEs coverage later.

melekalikimaka

Thatcher made the hard choices to get England back on its feet... no Irish leader would ever try that

Steve O

Brian lenihan was one of the most incompetent politicians of all time, universally hated by most. Yet when he died he was almost like a superhero.

Just shows how fickle some people are.

Raiser

StewartGriffin wrote: »

I'd say Leo Varadker has the ambition and ruthless streak to be an Irish Thatcher.

I think Varadkar thinks so too - My gut instinct is that his own unjustified high opinion of himself will lead to an enjoyable self destruction sometime soon......

- He is definitely an excitable little man waiting for 'enough rope'.

syklops

melekalikimaka wrote: »

Thatcher made the hard choices to get England back on its feet... no Irish leader would ever try that

I suggest you read some news.

true

melekalikimaka wrote: »

Thatcher made the hard choices to get England back on its feet... no Irish leader would ever try that

she had guts, and even though she saw some of her friends and fellow democrats being intimidated / murdered ( Airey Neave etc etc ) she sacrificed her own personal liberty for the rest of her life for the common good.
No politicianin this state would be so brave. They are still on their Easter holidays, with their bigger pay and pension than Thatcher got. Even though she worked 80 hours a week. Some woman, universally admired from her old ally the USA, to China, whose p.m. said she was a woman of her word. If thats what "being thatchered" means, its a compliment. Being the first female p.m. , and then being the longest serving of the 20th century, certainly broke the mould. If you want to Thatcher something, break the mould.

pablomakaveli

Steve O wrote: »

Brian lenihan was one of the most incompetent politicians of all time, universally hated by most. Yet when he died he was almost like a superhero.

Just shows how fickle some people are.

I remember the Sunday Independent had a cringeworthy advert on tv for some pullout they had on his life. The ad basically seemed to paint him as some national hero in the most sycophantic way possible.

syklops

true wrote: »

No politicianin this state would be so brave. They are still on their Easter holidays, with their bigger pay and pension than Thatcher got. Even though she worked 80 hours a week. Some woman, universally admired from her old ally the USA, to China, whose p.m. said she was a woman of her word. If thats what "being thatchered" means, its a compliment. Being the first female p.m. , and then being the longest serving of the 20th century, certainly broke the mould. If you want to Thatcher something, break the mould.

Another one who doesn't read the news. Do you think introducing the property tax, water charges, et al are popular moves by the government??!?

speedboatchase

syklops wrote: »

Another one who doesn't read the news. Do you think introducing the property tax, water charges, et al are popular moves by the government??!?

Governing isn't about being popular.

true

syklops wrote: »

Another one who doesn't read the news. Do you think introducing the property tax, water charges, et al are popular moves by the government??!?

They are being told to do that by the troika or else we do not get to continue to be able to borrow 20 billion a year to throw at the public service, pensions, public spending etc.

syklops

speedboatchase wrote: »

Governing isn't about being popular.

Margaret Thatcher would agree with you.

Grayson

true wrote: »

she had guts, and even though she saw some of her friends and fellow democrats being intimidated / murdered ( Airey Neave etc etc ) she sacrificed her own personal liberty for the rest of her life for the common good.
No politicianin this state would be so brave. They are still on their Easter holidays, with their bigger pay and pension than Thatcher got. Even though she worked 80 hours a week. Some woman, universally admired from her old ally the USA, to China, whose p.m. said she was a woman of her word. If thats what "being thatchered" means, its a compliment. Being the first female p.m. , and then being the longest serving of the 20th century, certainly broke the mould. If you want to Thatcher something, break the mould.

To be fair, Dennis was loaded. (not that I don't agree with your point)


As for the OP, Bertie. It can't be said often enough, by enough people. But when he dies RTE will run a tribute calling him a "much loved politician who developed animosity from certain quarters near the end of his career". And not a single person will stand up and call him the lying cheating stealing bastard that he is.

syklops

true wrote: »

They are being told to do that by the troika or else we do not get to continue to be able to borrow 20 billion a year to throw at the public service, pensions, public spending etc.

So first you say they are not brave enough to make unpopular cuts, and then you say they are being made to make unpopular cuts by the trojka. Which is it?

RATM

Steve O wrote: »

Brian lenihan was one of the most incompetent politicians of all time, universally hated by most. Yet when he died he was almost like a superhero.

Just shows how fickle some people are.

I couldn't stand the guy, right throughout the crises it was obvious that he didn't have a clue what he was doing. I think the fact he always came across as genuine fooled a lot of people, no point someone being genuine if the political and economic path they've chosen leads to doomsday. In debate he used to preface every single sentence with his catchphrase 'The reality is.....' and then go off and tell you what the reality isn't.

I wouldn't blame Lenihan for our crises, the seeds of that were well sown by Ahern, McCreevy and Cowen. But Leneihan was the one who signed our soveignity away. He was playing a game of high stakes poker with the ECB and he lost and lost heavily as do the Irish people today. Ireland's bailout propped up the whole European banking system. He had an opportunity to say to them if you don't burn the bondholders then I'm not signing this and the whole of the European banking system will collapse. Take it or leave it. He was in a position of so much power in those negotiations and he didn't even have the smarts to realise it himself. Instead he sold the Irish people into paying for the debts of private speculators and bondholders, it was as unpatriotic as you can get.

To later hear the Sunday Independent put him on a pedestal and call him 'Brian the Brave' was sickening. The fact of the matter is that if he had of died of cancer sooner than he did then the next 30 years of Irish economic history just might have been very different

Zebra3

true wrote: »

she had guts, and even though she saw some of her friends and fellow democrats being intimidated / murdered ( Airey Neave etc etc ) she sacrificed her own personal liberty for the rest of her life for the common good.
No politicianin this state would be so brave. They are still on their Easter holidays, with their bigger pay and pension than Thatcher got. Even though she worked 80 hours a week. Some woman, universally admired from her old ally the USA, to China, whose p.m. said she was a woman of her word. If thats what "being thatchered" means, its a compliment. Being the first female p.m. , and then being the longest serving of the 20th century, certainly broke the mould. If you want to Thatcher something, break the mould.

What do you think of her support for loyalist death squads? And Pol Pot? and Pinochet? And Saddam?

true

syklops wrote: »

So first you say they are not brave enough to make unpopular cuts, and then you say they are being made to make unpopular cuts by the trojka. Which is it?

Our government or other politicians in this state ( the previous govt ) would never be brave enough to stand up to the unions the way Mrs T. stood up to the unions and won, for the good of the UK as a whole, as all economists would agree.

true

Zebra3 wrote: »

What do you think of her support for loyalist death squads?

she always condemned them and jailed them. As for the rest, read through the threads. As regards Saddam when he invated Kuwait, she would have been the first to fight him back, had she been in power then. There would have been a lot more invasion of little countries had she not taught Argentina a lesson about the Falklands.

Zebra3

true wrote: »

she always condemned them and jailed them. As for the rest, read through the threads. As regards Saddam when he invated Kuwait, she would have been the first to fight him back, had she been in power then. There would have been a lot more invasion of little countries had she not taught Argentina a lesson about the Falklands.

She condemned the loyalist death squads in public, while ensuring nothing was done to hamper the British army giving them weapons and intelligence to carry out the murders of innocent civilians.

And a bit late her "standing against Saddam" over Kuwait after supporting him gassing innocent civilians.

true

Zebra3 wrote: »

She sondemned the loyalist death squads in public, while ensuring nothing was done to hamper the British army giving them weapons and intelligence to carry out the murders of innocent civilians.

There was no motive or need in the British army giving weapons or intelligence to carry out the murdering of "innocent civilians". Everyone knew who innocent civilians were without the need for intelligence from the British army.
You are just spouting propoganda you have been fed without thinking it through.

As Regards Saddam, world stage politicians have to choose "the lesser of 2 evils" the whole time. She would not have supported the gassing of innocent civilians there either.

Agricola

I doubt it. The nearest we've come is Haughey but hes in the ha'penny place compared to Thatcher. It's not like he set out to impoverish half of the nation, it's his personal "financial irregularities" that people will vilify him for. But then I think a lot of people secretly admire that kind of thing.

Anyway I don't think Irish people do venom and naked hate for public figures, or any figure for that matter. We are too polite and culturally Catholic for that.

Zebra3

true wrote: »

There was no motive or need in the British army giving weapons or intelligence to carry out the murdering of "innocent civilians". Everyone knew who innocent civilians were without the need for intelligence from the British army.
You are just spouting propoganda you have been fed without thinking it through.

As Regards Saddam, world stage politicians have to choose "the lesser of 2 evils" the whole time. She would not have supported the gassing of innocent civilians there either.

There was a motive for the British Army and RUC to be handing weapons and intelligence to loyalist murderers. The idea was to slaughter enough nationalists to force the IRA into a ceasefire. Loyalist killers have spoken openly about the strategy and members of the British security forces have spoken about how they facilitated it.

The West and Saudi Arabia were bankrolling Saddam's war of aaggression on Iran while he was gassing civilians. They had the power to call him to account for his war crimes and they didn't.

weemcd

There will be pints on me the day Ian Paisley croaks it.

One of the most hateful people to ever walk this island

Nforce

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pifibs_q7ec

Fast forward to ~7 mins in

Czarcasm

Nforce wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pifibs_q7ec

Fast forward to ~7 mins in

^^ N'awful gobshìte!


At least Ian Paisley the loudmouth prick got a mention, but I'm surprised Martin McGuinness the smarmy little prick didn't get a mention, nor Gerry Adams, the self serving prick, and of course who could forget Mary Lou, though I don't think she'll get half as much vitriol as the other three.

Joan Burton hasn't done herself any favors forgetting her labour roots, but then the same could be said of Eamonn Gilmore...

Out of the whole lot I'd say it'll be Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness will get the worst obituaries.

Zebra3

Czarcasm wrote: »

Joan Burton hasn't done herself any favors forgetting her labour roots, but then the same could be said of Eamonn Gilmore...

The diference between them though is that Gilmore doesn't have any Labour roots.

mikemac1

VinLieger wrote: »

One would hope but as hes an ex-taoiseach it will of course be news, although i really hope he doesnt get a state funeral. Fitzgerald deffinitely deserved one,

I didn't know Garrett Fitzgerald had died until I read this post!

I remember Haughey's funeral in Donnycarney, I can't remember Fitzgerald's funeral as big news, I clearly missed it all