Deciding what kind of country we want to live in - the Irish presidential race

Choosing Sean Gallagher as president could mean choosing to return to Ireland's old ways

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Sean Gallagher holding a baby on the campaign trail

Photo by Google Images

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It is why Charles Haughey was elected, it is why Bertie Ahern was elected.

“Questions are like the knocks of beggarmen, and should not be minded.”
― Flann O’Brien

I don’t want to live in that country.

I was struck also by the €5k paid by GAA clubs to SG in order to copper fasten grant aid. “He was inside with Fianna Fail and the ministers and (he had) the inside track, he had been (Dr Rory) O’Hanlon’s secretary. Once you got him to do it, you were going to get the grant.” According to sources in this article.

That’s the Ireland my Dad grew up in. Access to a small elite – not  your ability or your application decided your fate and the fate of your enterprise.

I have worked in developing countries where that logic reaches its inevitable end point, where corruption crushes initiative and turns good people into ex-pats.

It has a habit of breaking the people who stay and have the capacity to change countries like Ireland – I think of Noel Browne especially when I write this.

The human waste of our generations, the ‘40’s, the ‘50’s, the ‘60’s the ‘70’s, my own generation who left in the ‘80’s – is incalculable.

In this period, Europe rebuilt itself, America reimagined itself and our best and our brightest built rich lives invested in Nations far from home.

Ireland stagnated.

I don’t want to live in that country.

In business I have found myself in the company of what Flann O’Brien would call sleeveens.

I have seen close up the self delusion with regards to their ability; the cuteness built on a presumption that the rest of us are too thick to catch them out; the expectation that even though its wrong, they will get away with it, and there will be a great story to tell about that close brush with moral consequences.

Taking these guys down requires a lot of effort and personal sacrifice.

On Thursday, all you have to do is vote.

A vote for Sean Gallagher is a vote for the Ireland our parents grew up in.

I don’t want to live in that country.

From Frank Hannigan's personal blog

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