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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on May 19, 2008 9:44:42 GMT
I am in one way loath to post this, but when I said in a recent post that not every traditionalist was a conservative, it occured to me that of the politicians who attended the TLM in Ireland, none would have seen themselves as conservative.
I can think of three:
Most prominently, the late District Justice Michael O'Leary, who was previously Tanáiste and leader of the Labour Party before defecting to Fine Gael in 1982. He was very definitely a liberal in most political issues, but he attended Mass in Ss Michael's and John's and later in St Paul's Arran Quay in Dublin on many occasions.
Frank Prendergast, long serving alderman on Limerick Corporation and Mayor of Limerick, also Labour Party T.D. for Limerick East from 1982-1987 who lost the whip for abstaining in the Family Planning (Amendment) Bill 1985. Mr Prendergast was a long time campaigner against capital punishment. He also was involved in petitioning the Bishop of Limerick for TLM in that city and he frequently attends the ICRSS Mass in Limerick.
(Very infrequently), the late John Wilson, former Fianna Fáil tanáiste and long-serving minister and TD for Cavan-Monaghan. Wilson wouldn't thank anyone for calling him conservative. But he attended TLM in Dublin from time to time.
Anyone know more?
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Post by Askel McThurkill on May 29, 2008 11:26:48 GMT
I think a lot of people would pick the journo Kieron Wood out, though not near as much as when he used to be on the telly. Also, John Waters used to go to Michael's and John's and probably to St Paul's for a bit too.
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Post by Askel McThurkill on Jun 10, 2008 11:24:15 GMT
Someone mentioned another politician to me who has been seen at trad Masses - Mick Billane, who served a few terms on South Dublin County Council. Originally elected in the Workers' Party, he went through Democratic Left into the Labour Party, before leaving to join Fianna Fail in 2002 due to Labour's policy on abortion. Despite being what the Shinners call a sticky, he worked for a 'Yes' vote in 1983 and a 'No' vote in 1986, really going against the grain in that party. On all economic issues, he's way out on the left. No pinko, he's what you call a red. And every so often he can be seen in St Kevin's in Harrington St (and before that St Audoen's, High St.).
Looks like most of our trad politicians are on the left in Ireland.
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Post by cpm on Jun 10, 2008 14:11:05 GMT
I believe quite a prominent high court judge attends St Kevins and Shane Murphy (a barrister who may be on the barr council but Im not sure) is very much involved with the latin mass in St Kevin's. He has 3 sons who serve there every Sunday. In Nomine Christi CPM
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Post by Askel McThurkill on Jun 10, 2008 15:05:52 GMT
I would not regard barristers as public figures, if they were I could list several barristers that attend Harrington St. You could see some of them in their collars and bands when holyday Masses in Michael's & John's and St Paul's, Arran Quay were at lunch time.
Any judge of the High Court is prominent. I once saw Mr Justice Aindrias O Caoimh who is the Irish judge of the European Court of Justice (unlikely to be a 'no' voter) at an ordinary Sunday Mass in High St, so I would say that is as prominent as you get short of the Supreme Court, but the trad Mass is not to Mr O Caoimh's ordinary taste. Nor his twin brother, who is PP of Ballymun. But the High Court judge you are talking about is Mr Justice Peter Kelly, who has an interest in the Lassus, eh, Squallers.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jun 11, 2008 13:01:26 GMT
Lads,
You missed the best of the lot: Gerry McGeough - independent republican candidate in Fermanagh/South Tyrone in the last Assembly Elections. Gerry was a long term republican prisoner who served on the Ard Comhairle of Sinn Fein in 2000/2002. He left it as a result of social policies (already in place when he took the job and he had already marked himself as a believing Catholic, but no matter). Gerry has been pushing a Catholic/nationalist line since especially through the Hibernian Magazine.
Gerry attended Mass in St Audoen's, High St until his arrest after polling day in the north last year.
BTW, Judge Aindrias O Caoimh and Fr Liam O Cuiv are not twins, as suggested in the last post. They are two brothers in a set of triplets. And the O Cuiv family has a habit of using two spellings of their name, whether these O Cuivs or their cousins, who are de Valera's grandchildren on their mother's side. One of these latter O Cuivs is a government minister and his brother is PP in one of the Ballyfermot parishes. Interesting to see priests drawn from one of the state's most influential families work in some of the toughest parishes in Dublin.
Alaisdir.
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Post by Askel McThurkill on Jun 16, 2008 9:58:48 GMT
Normally speaking public servants are not public figures, unless they rise high enough in the service or if they are appointed to senior public service positions from outside. Gerry Murphy was Ombudsman for Credit Institutions from 1990 to 2005, when he became Deputy Ombudsman for Financial Services, which combined the positions of the Ombudsmen for Credit Institutions and the Insurance Industry.
Gerry Murphy was initially heavily involved in supporting the SSPX including purchase of St John's Chuch on Mounttown Road. His son, Shane (referred to in this thread) studied with the SSPX in Econe, but left after a number of months, occasioning the family switching the indult. Since then, they have been heavily involved in the indult Masses at successive locations in Dublin.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jun 17, 2008 13:33:12 GMT
Sounds like a move to the right of centre.
BTW, a figure from sport - Frank O'Farrell, manager of Manchester United after Matt Busby, is a long time attender of the traditional Mass.
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Post by Askel McThurkill on Jun 18, 2008 10:28:47 GMT
Jimmy Keaveney - star Dublin forward in the 1970s - went to St Paul's Arran Quay on occasion.
BTW, I once asked Frank O'Farrell what it was like to manage Georgie Best. He laughed and said: 'George could play football'.
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Post by Askel McThurkill on Jun 19, 2008 12:41:30 GMT
You know looking at the Ardagh & Clonmacnois discussion, I realised that the most visible Catholic traditionalist in the world has his roots in Ireland - Mel Gibson, a descendent of Longford emmigrants. You could something similar about Pat Buchannan in the States. Any more?
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 23, 2008 22:16:52 GMT
I'm a political conservative myself, but I think it is problematic when people assume that orthodox Catholicism and political conservatism should always go together. Because we have not had a Catholic aristocracy in Ireland for a long time it's often fatally easy to glamourise such people (they can be very good or very bad) and there are good reasons why Irish Catholics in Britain generally supported the Labour Party and Catholic ethnics in America were traditionally Democrats. (Admittedly Labour and the Democrats were pretty different then from what they are today. I fear the election of Moloch Obama will deal a blow to the pro-life movement in America and worldwide on a scale equivalent to the impact of the X Case here.) The role of the Catholic snob in the alienation of poorer Catholics from the Church should not be underestimated; the late William Martin Murphy was a very sincere and pious Catholic in the Jesuit tradition, but his understanding of the corporal works of mercy was deective to say the least.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Oct 24, 2008 11:41:13 GMT
Again I thank Hibernicus for this. There are grave problems with some, even many, left wing parties and their policies. It does not follow, however, that a Catholic is bound to be conservative. And William Martin Murphy (if I am not mistaken he owned the Irish Catholic as well as the Irish Independent at the time of the 1913 Lockout) is not a person to emulate. But a lot of Catholic trads live in a dream world and don't look at things the way they are.
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 24, 2008 22:16:32 GMT
Murphy didn't own the Irish Catholic in 1913 but he had owned it some years previously and the Irish Catholic proprietor in 1913, WF Dennehy, was a close associate of Murphy. In fact Dennehy's record of labour relations was much worse than Murphy's; in the 1890s Murphy was actually called in as mediator to resolve a trade dispute caused by Dennehy's locking out members of the printers' union and attempting to publish using only non-union labour!
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Oct 29, 2008 12:00:44 GMT
If this wasn't so tragic, I'd laugh.
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Post by Askel McThurkill on Jan 14, 2010 16:05:22 GMT
John Bruton was seen at Mass in St Kevin's in recent weeks. This is as public as you're going to get.
Another prominent FG man who attends occasionally is the former minster Patrick Cooney. His brother Garrett Cooney SC, before retirement possibly the leading libel lawyer in the state, is more regularly there.
To cross over to the FF benches, Senator Don Lydon was another trad Mass devotee.
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