Mary McAleese

[upbeat music] This is Mary McAleese, and you are listening to the Ireland Podcast.

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Welcome to the Ireland Podcast.

But, uh, the, the three Quinn children, um, were murdered by a, a petrol bomb thrown into their house.

Mm.

M- Mary McAleese was talking about that time as well, and how she was hosting Orange men at the Áras an Uachtaráin, the president's home, and she was questioning whether or not to do it.

Yeah, very, very, very saddening time, that.

Yeah.

So I didn't feel I should have been there.

There was Mary McAleese.

There was, you know, there was all sorts of people that were amazing.

But anyway, they asked me in this interview and I found the piece of paper recently and I looked back and one of the things I said was that immigration was going to like the people who came here was going to change the game for us hugely.

They should have learned from the mistakes last year and they really should be trying to strive for better.

And in a year that we're talking about how important amalgamation of the GAA, the Camogie Association, the LGFA is, obviously hugely disappointing that Mary McAleese has stepped down as the chair.

But are we not supposed to be working towards a one club model, you know, in this day and age? Yeah.

Former Cork footballer Reid Stack is with us here in Eve 2 on the line.

I haven't heard many people abroad saying this, but you get these Irish militant atheists who are angry and furious.

I even think I've heard Mary McAleese saying something to this effect.

They're annoyed that when you get baptised, you are like permanently catholic now and you can't undo it and that there's no off ramp and it like it maybe not mary mcleese maybe i'm mixing her up but somebody in that sphere somebody like her one of these like it was a one of the official ireland statesmanly women who's constantly complaining about the catholic probably probably

mary mcleese

They had a few extraordinary stories, the first of which was related to the planning tribunal and written by the journalist John Ryan.

And then it had an extraordinary cover for the 1997 presidential election involving Mary McAleese and Mary Bernardi amongst others.

And that gave the magazine a huge impact upon its returns and sales were very healthy indeed.

And then it was bought by Holson, which had run the In Dublin magazine for years.

Big Galway fan.

Big Galway fan, as was Michael D. Higgins before her, as was Mary McAleese before him, as was Mary Robinson before her.

Fascinating.

This has never happened before.

Like I'm like it taught me so much after like rejection now and stuff like that.

But I yeah, it was I'm kind of grateful for it in a way because it kind of gave me a bit of a kick up the hole in a way to kind of go, right, Mary, I'm like, you just don't know what's around the corner.

Yeah.

You know what

yeah but the thing I feel is like women's sport it's like it needs it's for some reason it's like needs such a like push or something I don't understand why it does but whereas the men's it's like people just go it's just a given they'll just go yeah so now are they not being put together no it hasn't been passed but it was meant to be it was meant to be in 2027 and why is

there a reason why

well well yeah Mary McAleese pulled out of the committee whatever it is apparently they had certain things that they had to pass through and they just didn't do them okay Now, I don't want to get my facts wrong here, but it's something along those lines.

Like, let's just say stuff had to be signed off and papers had to be filled and it just wasn't.

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Gents, we had finished recording two weeks ago when the big integration story broke and Mary McAleese stepped away from the steering committee and threw a few grenades in the direction of the GA.

I would say she tried to burn the place down on the way out, almost.

Pat, what were your thoughts on that and where...

It's not going to stop.

It's just going to continue to grow.

A lot of the stuff that we got pulled into was just sort of, Well, it got sort of gaslit by Mary McAleese, let's call it space.

She set the tone of it.