The old Chinese proverb, ‘May you live in interesting times’, is particularly apt for Charlie McDonald, the Ballyroan man who represented the people of Laois in the Council, the Dáil, the Seanad and in Europe.
He turns 89 next week and ahead of this Friday’s Local and European Elections he welcomed us into his home. His mind is sharp and his memory for detail is impeccable as he reflects on his life and times across the course of a wonderfully engaging chat.
This is a man who became a Laois County Councillor when he was just 22, who served in the Seanad alongside veterans of the 1916 Rising, was one of Ireland’s first representatives in Europe (learning French, German and even a bit of Italian to get by) and a man who visited 169 different countries on political business.
He was also elected to the Dáil in 1973, the only time in history when Fine Gael sent three Laois-Offaly TDs to Leinster House. There he took his place alongside his brother-in-law Oliver J. Flanagan and Tom Enright from Birr, under Liam Cosgrave’s government.
In all, he spent 36 years in the Oireachtas and his political career spanned more than 40 years. Away from politics, one of his greatest legacies is as founder of the Sue Ryder Foundation in Ireland.
We touch on all of that and many other topics over the course of a thoroughly enjoyable and insightful afternoon in his home outside Ballyroan, on the farm where he grew up and later raised his own family.
Born in 1935 to Martin and Kathleen McDonald (nee Delaney), he was the middle child of three, between sisters Kathleen and Bride.
Tragedy struck the family in 1940 when Charlie was still a small boy, his father dying after an accident playing football with Ballyroan. He died later from consumption (TB). He just missed the Penicillen. “He died on the 9th of January and the Penicillen came in on the 1st of March,” explains Charlie.
At the time there were three primary schools in Ballyroan and Charlie managed to attend all three of them. As was common practice at the time and for many years later, boys began school in the convent before moving to the boys school after Christmas.
There was also a Church of Ireland school, though at times that had as few as six pupils. “Sometimes a few of us would be sent up there and given a false name if there was an inspection in order to keep up their numbers,” he laughs.
“It was actually unusual for the time but the Parish Priest and the Archdeacon worked well together and they managed to keep the school open.”
After primary school he did four years in the Tech in Portlaoise and though he didn’t formally attend 3rd level, his education certainly didn’t stop. He did night classes for 12 years, one of them being an extramural Agricultural Science qualification from UCC. He also studied Irish and German – cycling to the likes of Portlaoise or Carlow to sit the courses.
Arguably the most formative experience was in Macra na Feirme, the young farmer’s organisation that had only been founded in Athy in 1944. The branch in Abbeyleix was one of the first established in Laois. Charlie embraced it fully and absolutely loved it.
“There were lots and lots of competitions – stock judging, poultry, ploughing, public speaking – and we took part in everything. Your name would be in the local papers every week with it.”
And an area where he excelled was in public speaking. “It wasn’t simple. You’d be hours and hours practising and researching topics.”
Three times he represented Abbeyleix in Macra’s national public speaking finals. Twice he won it.
When his uncle Charlie Delaney died (his mother’s brother and the owner of the County Hotel in Portlaoise), Charlie himself was co-opted to the Council in 1957, where he’d remain until 1991.
And only a couple of years after getting on the council, an opportunity arose to run for the Seanad in 1961 on the Agricultural Panel. “I got a lucky break and my name was sent up for it,” he says. But he thoroughly enjoyed the experience even though as he says himself “I stood out like a sore thumb”.
“I was the youngest by far,” he says. Only in his mid 20s, “Bernard McGlinchey from Donegal was eight years older than me and the next closest to him was 12 years older again!”.
“The thing that amazed me was that a lot of guys from 1916 were still around but they didn’t display any animosity towards each other. They were all big thinkers and there was no real bitching towards each other.”
The residue of the Civil War years were felt more locally. At times he said he felt he couldn’t be seen in a Fianna Fáil house. Some of that spilled into the Oireachtas too.
He recalls one day holding the door open for two Fianna Fáil female Senators. “But they wouldn’t walk through it. There was incredible bitterness.”
Among those he developed a good relationship with was Gerry Boland, the Fianna Fáil Minister for Justice whose brother Harry was killed in the Civil War.
“He often said that he felt one of the main reasons for the Civil War was that there simply wasn’t enough jobs to go around. The whole thing was so sad.”
In the Senate he enjoyed rubbing shoulders with people he described as “visionaries”, the likes of Owen Sheehy-Skeffington, a self-described Liberal Socialist, William Jessop, a medical professor in Trinity and the Royal College of Surgeons and a physician in the Meath Hospital, and the economist George O’Brien, a professor in UCD and one of the first chairmen of the ESRI.
He wasn’t long in the Senate when he got the opportunity to be secretary for the Parliamentary Party. “It wasn’t a powerful position but you were at the very centre of the system. It was extraordinary to be that close, fascinating.”
When he arrived on the political scene, Tom Higgins was the Fine Gael TD for Laois-Offaly. Oliver J was Independent.
“I was nurtured by the two of them. They were very different but two very able men,” he says.
He was also put in charge of the Fine Gael organisation in Laois-Offaly. “That was heavy going,” he recalls. “There was one constituency committee, there was two county committees, eight districts and 75 branches between the two counties. It was heavy going to service them all but I enjoyed it.”
In 1972, with Ireland heading for membership of the then EEC (European Economic Commission), Liam Cosgrave told him he’d be sent to Europe and advised him to brush up on his languages.
He got German lessons from one of the Brigidines in Mountrath and learned “a few phrases of floury Italian, it was one of the easiest languages to learn”. “Once you were able to say something in a language, the other nationalities would never know how much you did or didn’t know,” he jokes.
His time in Europe coincided with his time as a TD, something which was allowed at the time. It arguably meant that he was spread too thinly to his detriment in terms of building his profile but he again was thoroughly satisfied serving in Strasbourg, Brussels and Luxembourg.
“I got on very well with the English MEPs but the problem was when you spoke, the rest of them thought you were English as well.”
When he looks back, there were moments of hilarity – though it didn’t feel it at the time.
He got a call one Sunday night from a French colleague, Spenale Georges, asking would he deputise for him at an event in The Hague. Flights were in place, a speech was ready, a car to transport him from the airport. It was opened by Queen Juliana of the Netherlands.
When Charlie arrived up to make his speech, he looked down at what was in front of him. It was all in French. “It was lucky I didn’t collapse. The perspiration dropped off me.”
But he was a well read man and a fine speaker. He spoke off the cuff on the importance of ecology. Peter Barry, the then Minister for the Environment and at the event also, had the height of praise afterwards for him.
In Europe, being president of the Regional Policy on Transport was a big thing at a time when air transport was rapidly expanding.
“Freddie Laker came on the market. He was one of the first to adopt the low cost model. We gave Laker a licence. At the time it was dominated by Aer Lingus, Lufthansa.
“The salary as a TD was £1,000; a return flight to Rome was £420, nearly half a year’s salary. The low cost model made flying far more accessible. It opened up the commercial travel market completely.”
Another thing he was stuck in the middle of was the Cod Wars, a series of confrontations between the UK and Iceland about fishing rights in the North Atlantic.
“It was a vicious territorial war on fishing rights. The EEC brought in all sorts of experts and couldn’t get a solution. As a last resort it landed on my lap.”
There were days upon days of hearings; he spent time in Hull, on the east coast of the UK in Iceland, Denmark, Greenland. Eventually a resolution was found, concessions were made – McDonald was very central to it. And very proud of the role he played.
And what he’s also immensely proud of has been his contribution to the Sue Ryder Foundation over the course of half a century, which he founded in Ireland in 1979.
The inspiration for the foundation came when two elderly sisters from near The Heath were badly assaulted in their own home. They never recovered and passed away shortly after.
Along with his late wife Lilly, they were prompted to take action.
“There was no nursing homes in the county. We heard that Lady Ryder (a Baroness from the UK who set up numerous charitable organisations) was looking at a premises in Limerick and Lilly, god be good to her, got in contact with her and we persuaded her to come to Ballyroan.”
Today the foundation has assets worth €45-50 million and has six retirement villages in Ireland. The one in Ballyroan has 21 chalets and apartments and is a thriving community in itself and a source of local employment.
He was also a member of the Knights of Columbanus, a Catholic organisation that does considerable charity work. Helping to set up up Brú Columbanus in Cork, a facility that provides free accommodation for families of patients in hospitals in the city, is another considerable feather in his hat.
Looking back, it’s the politicians that displayed vision had the greatest impact. “Five or six” were of that ilk, he says, name-dropping former Fine Gael leader James Dillon for his work in agriculture in particular. The other name he mentions unprompted is Charlie Haughey, whom McDonald served alongside as a young man in the FCA.
Haughey is remembered differently now, of course, “but he was a visionary, who saw the bigger picture”.
Before we finish our chat, the doorbell rings. Who’s at the door only his nephew Charlie Flanagan (whose mother Mai was a sister of Charlie’s wife Lilly – originally McWeys from Sleaty near Graiguecullen).
Charlie had been out canvassing on the Local Election campaign trail with candidates and spun by to visit on his way to his next stop. By this stage we’re having the cup of tea and Charlie joins us, all the chat about the upcoming elections and the various possibilities.
“Charlie is completely different than Oliver was,” Charlie McDonald had told us earlier in the interview. “He’s a bit shy but he works very well. His input has always been quieter but very effective.
“He has a strong mind – a great intellect. I think he did a marvellous job in Foreign Affairs. Had he not lost the election in 2002, I think he could have wound up as Fine Gael leader and Taoiseach. The timing would have been right for him but that is the way in politics. Timing is everything.”
He still follows the political scene though not as much as previously and is in good health. He attended the recent Fine Gael launch in the Abbeyleix Manor Hotel, was at Vivienne Phelan’s launch in Stradbally and is an ardent supporter of Barry Walsh, the Fine Gael candidate in Ballyroan who is seeking to uphold the village’s long and proud history of local representation.
Up to recently Charlie would help his son Martin on the farm regularly – now, he says, he’ll simply go to check on the cattle.
Martin, who also runs Stradbally Town and Country, lives nearby with his family; his other son Simon is a barrister and his daughter Siobhan an optician, both based in Dublin.
And when asked of political regrets, there is only one thing he mentions.
“I don’t believe in looking back but the one regret I have is that I did give public service too much priority over family. I missed things like communions and confirmations. My priorities were too pro patria.”
There was abuse too that he had to put up, including occasional calls from the IRA, a commonplace experience for TDs in the 1970s.
Another was from protesting nurses in Tullamore at one stage, who were irate with Government policy.
“They’d ring the phone here on the hour, every hour during the night. It was a horrible thing to do to someone’s home where children were asleep. You couldn’t leave it off the hook either because the phone would just make a growling sound. I thought it was a horrible thing to do for a profession who should have been about caring.
“There has always been abuse in politics, that hasn’t changed. You’d get abuse from all directions.
“The thing is, the ones giving abuse were no saints. It was very hurtful at times but you had to smile and take it.
“The big thing was being able to see the best in everyone. You had to be non-judgemental and seek out the best in people.”
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