Maureen Dowd: Fighting Irish girl

By

Niall O'Dowd,

Irish America Magazine

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A 2-year-old Maureen Dowd dressed up in her shamrock dress for St. Patrick's Day

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When Peggy died, the fulsome Washington Post obituary heading said simply: “Font of Advice.”

In many ways that has never changed. Maureen’s New York Times columns could be read in some ways as letters to the mother she still misses profoundly, full of the piercing insight and gossipy bon mots Peggy Dowd loved.

The old Irish rebel still lives on in her daughter. Mike Quill, the great union leader and 1920s IRA activist, is alleged to have told the immigration man letting him into America that “if there’s a government here I’m against it.” Sometimes it seems Maureen feels that way too.

All these years later, the little girl that her father worried was too shy to get on in life has certainly proved him wrong.

Dowd’s meteoric rise to the top of the media pile was achieved through sheer dint of hard work and an unerring eye for the critical detail that everyone else was missing. Along the way she has ended forever the cozy view of women writers as softly-softlys who leave the meaty stuff to the men.

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