Leo Varadkar

good goodbye speech

 

(he's just about holding it together)

I like Leo, voted for his party all my life.  I should mention that Michael Noonan, whilst in the middle of a negotiation with the IMF, attended my dad's funeral.  It was odd, as the news later that day said "minister Noonan met with the IMF in Dublin today", yet, there I had been speaking with him about an hour earlier..

or... maybe they found out he and his husband AREN'T gay and it was just a tactic to win votes.. (Ireland isn't as conservative as it once was when the catholic church had all the power)

I liked Leo.

His address to the nation as he put Ireland into its first lockdown was one of the best speeches I've heard from a modern politician, and stood in stark contrast to the idiot then residing in Number 10

“It does bother me to see the United Kingdom disengaging from the world – whether it’s reducing its budget for international aid, whether it’s leaving the European Union and now even talking about withdrawing from the European convention on human rights. That’s not the Britain I know,”

No wonder hanners hates Leo Varadkar - going around, spouting obvious nonsense like this.

Eddie is such a stereotypical blueshirt (i.e. Fine Gael supporter - comes from their 1930s fascist era when they wore blueshirts in imitation of Mussolini's blackshirts).  I don't say that in a disparging way.  It's interesting how true the stereotypes are.

Varadkar was far from a stereotypical blueshirt.  I knew him, albeit not well, when we were at university together.  I don't agree with most of his politics nor do I think he has always been a good Taoiseach.  However, I've never doubted that he's a sincere, honest person who has the best interests of Ireland as a whole at heart, and not just personal or sectional interests.

Saving the unlikely event that his successor is Paschal Donoghue, Fine Gael will definitely do worse under his successor.  And when I saw Donoghue in the flesh in Dublin a couple of weeks ago the cares of office seemed to hang heavy on him.  In particular, Simon Harris is an Irish Sebastian Kurz, a university dropout whose sole goal in politics is his own personal ambition.

It's interesting that two of the four ministers who are most touted as candidates to succeed Varadkar are the children of Irish MPs who committed suicide and then succeeded (at a relatively young age) to their parent's seat, elected on a sympathy vote.  Something to consider for current Irish MPs who want their children to succeed them in politics and go one better in their careers.

I didn’t know he was ‘mixed race’ either

It’s surprising that you don’t know this, nor that he’s gay but you do know the political stance of obscure Scotch Indie bands. 

Rob, the only people who have ever called me a "Blue Shirt" were Sinn Fein.. tbf, my allegiance to the party started early in my youth when it was Fitzgerald v Haughey and I hated the Boss.

My dads father was firmly in the pro treaty camp, my grandad worked closely with Collins.

My mothers dad was deeply anti treaty and he was a message runner for the anti treaty forces.  

Something to consider for current Irish MPs who want their children to succeed them in politics and go one better in their careers.

The Dáil has always been a family business.  Just look at the Lenihane family, the DeVeleras, Healy Raes, MacSharry's

Parish Pump Politics.

Lol at Risky claiming not to know he was mixed race.

Ah yes, good old Lee O'Varadkar. His great, great grandpappy Ronan O'Varadkar came from a long line of blacksmiths in County Clare, iirc.

From the ballad "Viva la quinta brigada"

Many Irishmen heard the call of Franco
Joined Hitler and Mussolini too
Propaganda from the pulpit and newspapers
Helped O'Duffy to enlist his crew
 

The word came from Maynooth, "support the Nazis"
The men of cloth failed again
When the Bishops blessed the Blueshirts in Dun Laoghaire
As they sailed beneath the swastika to Spain