'Mammy Mary was always on your side'

Former Taoiseach hails inspiring ex-minister O'Rourke as driving force behind the scenes

- BY LYNNE KELLEHER

BERTIE Ahern was a regular visitor to Mary O'Rourke in the nursing home where she resided right up to the end of her life.

The country's most senior figures feature heavily in a new RTE documentary on the life of one of the matriarchal figures in Irish politics, fittingly called Mary O'Rourke: The Mammy.

While the Fianna Fail grandee never ran the country, Cloch Le Carn details how she engineered pivotal runs for office behind the scenes by convincing former President Mary McAleese to put her name on the ballot for the Aras while she pushed Micheal Martin to seek election to the Dail when he was a county councillor.

Her eldest son, Feargal, recalls how his mother's six grandchildren only fully grasped the scale of her public life on the day she died, as the family gathered in his home.

"The Six O'Clock News came on, and the six grandkids were there with their mouths open and they saw the footage", he said adding, "It really brought home to them just all she had done during her life."

First elected to the Dail in 1982, O'Rourke served as Minister for Education, Minister for Health and Minister for Public Enterprise, and later as Leader of the Seanad, at a time when Irish politics was overwhelmingly male dominated.

In the documentary, which explores the private woman behind the public persona, Bertie Ahern says he loved visiting his former deputy leader in the nursing home where she resided in her final days.

"The mind was by and large, very sharp and very interesting and engaging."