Mary O’Rourke: Ray MacSharry saved my bacon
As a “rookie” education minister Ms O’Rourke was under fire for implementing government policy which would increase the pupil-teacher ratio by three.
The country was in the midst of an economic crisis and, as finance minister, Mr MacSharry had to try to correct the public finances.
Then Fine Gael leader, Alan Dukes, and many Fianna Fáil TDs called for the measure to be scrapped and there was talk of whether she was up to the job.
But, she reveals in her new book how Mr MacSharry came to her defence at the party meeting.
A motion was put down at the party condemning her but at a crucial juncture he took to his feet. He said that Ms O’Rourke was not going off on a solo run but merely implementing an agreed policy of the Cabinet.
“Isn’t that so, Taoiseach?” Mr MacSharry asked of then taoiseach Charlie Haughey.
“That is so, minister,” came the reply and Ms O’Rourke’s bacon was saved.
The episode is recalled in one of 20 letters written by Ms O’Rourke to various people of interest in the book Letters of My Life.
Among the others written by Mr O’Rourke is to Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook despite not knowing her personally; and her sister-in–law Ann Lenihan, wife and mother to the two late Brian Lenihans, who were her brother and nephew.
In one of the more interesting letters, Ms O’Rourke writes to her first cousin Mairead Blake, about their uncle Joe, who was a “double spy” for the Germans and English.
Joe Lenihan, who was a brother to PJ Lenihan TD, found himself on the Island of Jersey in 1940 just before the German occupation occurred. He was captured by German officers and then was offered release in exchange for becoming a spy for the Gestapo. He transferred to Paris until the end of 1940 before being parachuted into Meath in 1941 in order to radio weather conditions from Sligo.
He later was requested to send similar weather reports from Britain but instead he travelled to Northern Ireland where he handed himself over to the British. He explained he disliked Nazism even more than he did the British. He would later become a candidate to become a double agent for the Allies.
Speaking to the Irish Examiner, Ms O’Rourke said the collection of letters to the wide range of people is semi-autobiographical.
She said she chose not to write a letter either to her late husband Enda or Brian Lenihan Jnr, with whom she was very close, as she has written and spoken about both of them extensively in her previous book Just Mary.
The book is to be launched next Wednesday by broadcaster Pat Kenny and singer Brian Kennedy will sing a version of Patrick Kavanagh’s ‘Raglan Road’.
