World of Politics with Harry McGee

Dick Walsh was a celebrated political journalist who worked for the Irish Times. He wrote a book about Fianna Fáil in the 1990s which wasn’t the best book ever published about the party – but it had a fantastic opening.

He recalled an incident from his youth in his native Co Clare. He was speaking to a man who told him his family had been loyal Fianna Fáil supporters since the “old days”.

“What do you mean, since the Civil War?” asked Walsh.

“Not at all,” said the old man. “We have follied Fianna Fáil since 1798.”

For a younger generation now the notion of civil war politics is........

© Connacht Tribune