Senator John McGahon - speech from 7 Dec 2022

I think it is more appropriate that I call on a lifelong family friend and whose families were bonded for years, Senator John McGahan, to say what we all once said. Senator John McGahan Thank you very much, Laskierlech. I have to admit, after two years in the Oireachtas, this is certainly a speech that I am quite nervous about getting up and saying, so there is certainly no pressure. Senator John McGahan However, I first met Terry Brennan when I was nine years of age, when he was running alongside my dad in the 1999 local elections, and Terry was the scourge of any Fine Gael Dundalk candidate, because even though he is from the rural part of the constituency in Carlinford, he always got 350 to 400 votes in Dundalk town, which was 25 kilometres away from him. Senator John McGahan He was able to get that vote because Terry knew absolutely everybody, and even to this day, doing the job that I do, there is not a week or a month that does not pass me where Terry Brennan's name is not mentioned in one way, shape or form, particularly when I ran for the Senate in 2020. Senator John McGahan Every second councillor asked me how Terry was, how was Terry, and this was just a few months before he sadly passed away. Senator John McGahan Terry was famous for a number of things, one of them being politics, but other that was his actual footballing career. And before today's debate, I spoke to Jim Thornton in Green Ore, who is an expert in the GAA and Terry's beloved Cooley Kickhams, and he outlined to me a couple of things. Now, these are Jim's words, not mine, but he said that Terry as a forward player was a very, very skilful left-footed player, a great team player rather than an individual. He always put the team ahead of his own personal glory on the pitch. He was captain, I think Peter Savage might correct me right or not, of the 1973 Senior Championship winning side, which won the Lowth County Senior Championship. And Jim said he did not actually have an inter-county career, but he should have had an inter-county career because he was absolutely up to the standard of level of footballers in County Lowth in the 1970s. He was very mobile, capable, and very capable of looking after himself on the football pitch. And I know that too is the same for politics, he was very well capable of looking after himself there. He first ran for Lowth County Council in 1985, and in that election, the Cooley area was a three-seat electoral area. And he was up against Peter Savage, who is sitting there now, and he was up against a famous Fine Gael councillor called Tommy Elmore, who had been a councillor for 20, 25 years previously. And the two of them went at it hammer and tongs and actually increased the Fine Gael vote more than ever before in the 1985 election. But Terry unfortunately pipped Tommy Elmore to the post and then served for a further 26 years as a member of Lowth County Council, getting re-elected in 1991, 1999, 2004 and 2009. He ran for the Dáil in 1997 and 2002 and was very unlucky in 2002 when it opened up for him, because 2002 was for the Fine Gael party one of our worst elections in recent memory. So it was unlucky that his opportunity to go into the national stage into Dáil Éireann was stifened by the very poor Fine Gael election result that time around. Between 2004 and 2009, Terry actually retired from the ESB in and around that stage, and in the 2004 election he got about 850 first preference votes. He then went out full-time as a councillor for those five years, and he doubled his vote from 850 to 1450. And in the local elections in 2019 when I was running for re-election, the tallies were coming out and I was watching them. And I was getting a vote and the votes were coming in. And the next thing it had me at like 1470 and I was like, God, I've beaten Terry Brennan's vote in 09, right? Because Terry Brennan had the highest vote ever for Fine Gael in the North Lowth electoral area. And that is an electoral area that, I'll be straight about it, is not very Fine Gael friendly for a couple of reasons. Mainly because Peter Savage cleaned it up for 30 years in his ability as a county councillor. But it turns out I didn't because someone gave me the wrong tally count and I got 80 votes more in a box that didn't exist. So I unfortunately didn't beat Terry Brennan and I don't think anyone will beat that record. And that record will stand the test of time in terms of Fine Gael in the North Lowth area. I want to just speak briefly to his friendship and his political friendship with Peter Savage. Peter was first elected in 1974 and the way the Cooley Peninsula always voted was one Brennan, two Savage, one Savage, two Brennan. It crossed party political lines. Despite the two of them only living less than two kilometres away, they were both able to get 13, 14, 1500 votes every election. It was absolutely incredible. And there's not one person in the Cooley Peninsula who does not have planning permission as a result of either Terry Brennan or Peter Savage. So maybe that was the key to their electoral success for so long. I really want to welcome his family here today. They have become very, very good friends of mine in recent years and have been very good to me throughout my time in politics. But that friendship goes a lot further back, particularly through my uncle, the late Brendan McGahan, who ran with Terry in the 1997 general election. But they were very, very firm friends for a very, very long time. And I have a lovely picture on my phone of the two of them having lunch in the Ballymascanlan Hotel in 2017, just before my uncle passed away. But what I would say finally to Terry's family is it is so great to have you here. He had a wonderful five years here and it was a great way to top off a stellar political career at local level. It really, truly was. It's great to have his friends here, former Deputy Brian Walsh, Deputy Joe Kerry. His other friends are watching as well, former Minister Pawty Coffey, Noel Coon and TD. A lot of people you met at his funeral who are very, very, very close to him. And what I would say, you know, to wrap up is it's a pity Bobby couldn't be here. I know he's watching from Augusta, where Terry liked to visit regularly. A joke was said to me earlier that they used to see Terry on the TV in Augusta. He was so well positioned at every single time. But it's great to have Tania and David here, particularly Eileen, Terry's widow. And it's great to have Tyg, who is David's son, and his three grandchildren, who I perhaps know the best in terms of Aoife, Megan and Oren, who are children of Tania and Paddy. And I feel that now that I've gotten to know them, Tyg, I haven't gotten to know you yet, but when you're 18, I definitely will. But what I would say to Aoife, Oren and Megan, I can see so many traits of your grandfather's personality in the three of you in so many different ways. And I'm really, utterly convinced that his legacy lives on. And his legacy will live on both within the Fine Gael family, both within the electorate of the North Carlinford and North Louth and in this house. They broke the mould when they made Terry Brennan. Thank you for that, Senator McGowan, and your knowledge of each other was so great, and the families. But Terry was universally popular in this house.