Brendan McGahon always said it as he saw it
BRENDAN McGahon was the second former Louth TD to pass away since the turn of the year, following the death of Eddie Filgate in January.
It is fair to say that the Fine Gael man made a far greater impact on the political scene in Louth and nationally than the Fianna Fail TD.
Brendan McGahon was regarded as something of a maverick in his time in politics.
He was certainly outspoken and it was his forthright views that brought him attention on a national level as he never attained a ministerial post or senior position when Fine Gael was in Government or on the opposing benches in the Dáil.
His views were not shared by everyone and many objected strongly to some of his more alternative views. In today’s world of political correctness he would stand out all the more, yet his views and sound-bites must have been a journalists dream for those covering Dáil proceedings.
He was consistent in his viewpoint and never swayed and since his death many have paid tribute to those qualities, highlighting that perhaps he was the exception to the rule of the flip-flopping, populist, anodyne politicians that we all know.
He spent twenty years as a TD for County Louth, from 1982 to 2002 when he retired and during that time the Troubles were a curse on Ireland and Dundalk particularly, which was snagged by the violence and became home to northern nationalists forced out of parts of Belfast and elsewhere by loyalists.
During those years Dundalk was portrayed in a very negative light nationally as well as internationally. The town was cursed with the label of ‘El Paso’ by one British newspaper and the nickname stuck for way too long.
During this time Brendan McGahon was a loud voice of opposition to the IRA and he spoke candidly, bravely and truthfully about the damage the campaign of republican terrorism was causing to his home town.
He refused to close his newsagents shop at times of funerals for hunger strikers. That would not have been an easy decision to make in Dundalk at that time.
While he was very well liked and popular among his fellow TDs in Leinster House, he was semi-detached within the Fine Gael parliamentary party and was never in the inner sanctum when Fine Gael were in government and Garret Fitzgerald was Taoiseach, which meant that he was never able to exercise political influence in the corridors of power that the town so badly needed during the dark days of violence and economic recession in the 1980s.
Nonetheless Brendan was warmly regarded by very many people of all political shades in Dundalk for he was a much loved figure about town, generous with his time, a witty and engaging conversationalist, and always willing to extend a generous hand to those who fell on hard times.