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Yahoo
13-07-2025
- Yahoo
How hundreds of Irish babies came to be buried in a secret mass grave
No burial records. No headstones. No memorials. Nothing until 2014, when an amateur historian uncovered evidence of a mass grave, potentially in a former sewage tank, believed to contain hundreds of babies in Tuam, County Galway, in the west of Ireland. Now, investigators have moved their diggers onto the nondescript patch of grass next to a children's playground on a housing estate in the town. An excavation, expected to last two years, will begin on Monday. The area was once where St Mary's children's home stood, a church-run institution that housed thousands of women and children between 1925 and 1961. Many of the women had fallen pregnant outside of marriage and were shunned by their families - and separated from their children after giving birth. According to death records, Patrick Derrane was the first baby to die at St Mary's – in 1915, aged five months. Mary Carty, the same age, was the last in 1960. In the 35 years between their deaths, another 794 babies and young children are known to have died there - and it is believed they are buried in what former Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Enda Kenny dubbed a "chamber of horrors". PJ Haverty spent the first six years of his life in the place he calls a prison - but he considers himself one of the lucky ones. "I got out of there." He remembers how the "home children", as they were known, were shunned at school. "We had to go 10 minutes late and leave 10 minutes early, because they didn't want us talking to the other kids," PJ said. "Even at break-time in the school, we weren't allowed to play with them – we were cordoned off. "You were dirt from the street." Read more from the survivors, relatives and campaigners who helped reveal the secret of Tuam after a decades-long wait for the truth. The stigma stayed with PJ his whole life, even after finding a loving foster home and, in later years, tracking down his birth mother, who was separated from him when he was a one-year-old. The home, run by the nuns of the Bon Secours Sisters, was an invisible spectre that loomed over him and many others in Tuam for decades – until amateur historian Catherine Corliss brought St Mary's dark past into the light. Interested in delving into her family's past, Catherine took a local history course in 2005. Later, her interest turned to St Mary's and the "home children" who came to school separately from her and her classmates. "When I started out, I had no idea what I was going to find." To begin with, Catherine was surprised her innocuous inquiries were being met with blank responses or even suspicion. "Nobody was helping, and nobody had any records," she said. That only fed her determination to find out more about the children at the home. A breakthrough came when she spoke to a cemetery caretaker, who brought her to the housing estate where the institution once stood. At the side of a children's playground, there was a square of lawn with a grotto – a small shrine centred on a statue of Mary. The caretaker told Catherine that two boys had been playing in that area in the mid-1970s after the home was demolished, and had come across a broken concrete slab. They pulled it up to reveal a hole. Inside they saw bones. The caretaker said the authorities were told and the spot was covered up. People believed the remains were from the Irish Famine in the 1840s. Before the mother-and-baby home, the institution was a famine-era workhouse where many people had died. But that didn't add up for Catherine. She knew those people had been buried respectfully in a field half a mile away - there was a monument marking the spot. Her suspicion was further raised when she compared old maps of the site. One, from 1929, labelled the area the boys found the bones as a "sewage tank". Another, from the 1970s after the home was demolished, had a handwritten note next to that area saying "burial ground". The map did seem to indicate there was a grave at the site – and Catherine had read the sewage tank labelled on the map had become defunct in 1937 so, in theory, was empty. But who was buried there? Catherine called the registration office for births, deaths and marriages in Galway and asked for the names of all the children who had died at the home. A fortnight later a sceptical member of staff called to ask if she really wanted them all – Catherine expected "20 or 30" - but there were hundreds. The full list, when Catherine received it, recorded 796 dead children. She was utterly shocked. Her evidence was starting to indicate who was likely to be underneath that patch of grass at St Mary's. But first, she checked burial records to see if any of those hundreds of children were buried in cemeteries in Galway or neighbouring County Mayo – and couldn't find any. Without excavation, Catherine couldn't prove it beyond doubt. She now believed that hundreds of children had been buried in an unmarked mass grave, possibly in a disused sewage tank, at the St Mary's Home. When her findings broke into an international news story in 2014, there was considerable hostility in her home town. "People weren't believing me," she recalled. Many cast doubt - and scorn - that an amateur historian could uncover such an enormous scandal. But there was a witness who had seen it with her own eyes. Warning: The following sections contain details some readers might find distressing Mary Moriarty lived in one of the houses near the site of the institution in the mid-1970s. Shortly after she spoke to BBC News, she passed away, but her family have agreed to allow what she told us to be published and broadcast. Mary recalled two women coming to her in the early 1970s saying "they saw a young fella with a skull on a stick". Mary and her neighbours asked the child where he had found the skull. He showed them some shrubbery and Mary, who went to look, "fell in a hole". Light streamed in from where she had fallen. That's when she saw "little bundles", wrapped in cloths that had gone black from rot and damp, and were "packed one after the other, in rows up to the ceiling". How many? "Hundreds," she replied. Some time later, when Mary's second son was born in the maternity hospital in Tuam, he was brought to her by the nuns who worked there "in all these bundles of cloths" - just like those she had seen in that hole. "That's when I copped on," Mary says, "what I had seen after I fell down that hole were babies." In 2017, Catherine's findings were confirmed - an Irish government investigation found "significant quantities of human remains" in a test excavation of the site. The bones were not from the famine and the "age-at-death range" was from about 35 foetal weeks to two or three years. By now, a campaign was under way for a full investigation of the site - Anna Corrigan was among those who wanted the authorities to start digging. Until she was in her 50s, Anna believed she was an only child. But, when researching her family history in 2012, she discovered her mother had given birth to two boys in the home in 1946 and 1950, John and William. Anna was unable to find a death certificate for William, but did find one for John – it officially registers his death at 16 months. Under cause of death it listed "congenital idiot" and "measles". An inspection report of the home in 1947 had some more details about John. "He was born normal and healthy, almost nine pounds (4kg) in weight," Anna said. "By the time he's 13 months old, he's emaciated with a voracious appetite, and has no control over bodily functions. "Then he's dead three months later." An entry from the institution's book of "discharges" says William died in 1951 – she does not know where either is buried. Anna, who set up the Tuam Babies Family Group for survivors and relatives, said the children have been given a voice. "We all know their names. We all know they existed as human beings." Now, the work begins to find out the full extent of what lies beneath that patch of grass in Tuam. The excavation is expected to take about two years. "It's a very challenging process – really a world-first," said Daniel MacSweeney, the head of the operation, who has helped find missing bodies in conflict zones such as Afghanistan. He explained that the remains would have been mixed together and that an infant's femur - the body's largest bone - is only the size of an adult's finger. "They're absolutely tiny," he said. "We need to recover the remains very, very carefully – to maximise the possibility of identification." The difficulty of identifying the remains "can't be underestimated", he added. For however long it takes, there will be people like Anna waiting for news - hoping to hear about sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts and cousins they never had the chance to meet. Details of help and support with child bereavement are available in the UK at BBC Action Line Timeline: Irish mother and baby homes controversy Pre-excavation work begins at mass burial site Irish PM to apologise over mother-and-baby homes Tuam babies whistleblower 'optimistic for closure' 'I need to know what happened to my brothers'
BBC News
12-07-2025
- BBC News
Tuam: How hundreds of babies and toddlers came to be buried in an unmarked mass grave
No burial records. No headstones. No until 2014, when an amateur historian uncovered evidence of a mass grave, potentially in a former sewage tank, believed to contain hundreds of babies in Tuam, County Galway, in the west of investigators have moved their diggers onto the nondescript patch of grass next to a children's playground on a housing estate in the town. An excavation, expected to last two years, will begin on area was once where St Mary's children's home stood, a church-run institution that housed thousands of women and children between 1925 and 1961. Many of the women had fallen pregnant outside of marriage and were shunned by their families - and separated from their children after giving to death records, Patrick Derrane was the first baby to die at St Mary's – in 1915, aged five months. Mary Carty, the same age, was the last in the 35 years between their deaths, another 794 babies and young children are known to have died there - and it is believed they are buried in what former Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Enda Kenny dubbed a "chamber of horrors". PJ Haverty spent the first six years of his life in the place he calls a prison - but he considers himself one of the lucky ones."I got out of there." He remembers how the "home children", as they were known, were shunned at school."We had to go 10 minutes late and leave 10 minutes early, because they didn't want us talking to the other kids," PJ said."Even at break-time in the school, we weren't allowed to play with them – we were cordoned off."You were dirt from the street." Read more from the survivors, relatives and campaigners who helped reveal the secret of Tuam after a decades-long wait for the truth. The stigma stayed with PJ his whole life, even after finding a loving foster home and, in later years, tracking down his birth mother, who was separated from him when he was a home, run by the nuns of the Bon Secours Sisters, was an invisible spectre that loomed over him and many others in Tuam for decades – until amateur historian Catherine Corliss brought St Mary's dark past into the light. Discovering the mass grave Interested in delving into her family's past, Catherine took a local history course in 2005. Later, her interest turned to St Mary's and the "home children" who came to school separately from her and her classmates."When I started out, I had no idea what I was going to find."To begin with, Catherine was surprised her innocuous inquiries were being met with blank responses or even suspicion."Nobody was helping, and nobody had any records," she only fed her determination to find out more about the children at the home.A breakthrough came when she spoke to a cemetery caretaker, who brought her to the housing estate where the institution once stood. At the side of a children's playground, there was a square of lawn with a grotto – a small shrine centred on a statue of caretaker told Catherine that two boys had been playing in that area in the mid-1970s after the home was demolished, and had come across a broken concrete slab. They pulled it up to reveal a they saw bones. The caretaker said the authorities were told and the spot was covered believed the remains were from the Irish Famine in the 1840s. Before the mother-and-baby home, the institution was a famine-era workhouse where many people had that didn't add up for Catherine. She knew those people had been buried respectfully in a field half a mile away - there was a monument marking the spot. Her suspicion was further raised when she compared old maps of the site. One, from 1929, labelled the area the boys found the bones as a "sewage tank". Another, from the 1970s after the home was demolished, had a handwritten note next to that area saying "burial ground".The map did seem to indicate there was a grave at the site – and Catherine had read the sewage tank labelled on the map had become defunct in 1937 so, in theory, was empty. But who was buried there?Catherine called the registration office for births, deaths and marriages in Galway and asked for the names of all the children who had died at the home.A fortnight later a sceptical member of staff called to ask if she really wanted them all – Catherine expected "20 or 30" - but there were hundreds. The full list, when Catherine received it, recorded 796 dead was utterly shocked. Her evidence was starting to indicate who was likely to be underneath that patch of grass at St Mary' first, she checked burial records to see if any of those hundreds of children were buried in cemeteries in Galway or neighbouring County Mayo – and couldn't find excavation, Catherine couldn't prove it beyond doubt. She now believed that hundreds of children had been buried in an unmarked mass grave, possibly in a disused sewage tank, at the St Mary's Home. When her findings broke into an international news story in 2014, there was considerable hostility in her home town. "People weren't believing me," she recalled. Many cast doubt - and scorn - that an amateur historian could uncover such an enormous there was a witness who had seen it with her own The following sections contains details some readers might find distressing Mary Moriarty lived in one of the houses near the site of the institution in the mid-1970s. Shortly after she spoke to BBC News, she passed away, but her family have agreed to allow what she told us to be published and recalled two women coming to her in the early 1970s saying "they saw a young fella with a skull on a stick".Mary and her neighbours asked the child where he had found the skull. He showed them some shrubbery and Mary, who went to look, "fell in a hole".Light streamed in from where she had fallen. That's when she saw "little bundles", wrapped in cloths that had gone black from rot and damp, and were "packed one after the other, in rows up to the ceiling". How many?"Hundreds," she time later, when Mary's second son was born in the maternity hospital in Tuam, he was brought to her by the nuns who worked there "in all these bundles of cloths" - just like those she had seen in that hole."That's when I copped on," Mary says, "what I had seen after I fell down that hole were babies." In 2017, Catherine's findings were confirmed - an Irish government investigation found "significant quantities of human remains" in a test excavation of the site. The bones were not from the famine and the "age-at-death range" was from about 35 foetal weeks to two or three now, a campaign was under way for a full investigation of the site - Anna Corrigan was among those who wanted the authorities to start she was in her 50s, Anna believed she was an only child. But, when researching her family history in 2012, she discovered her mother had given birth to two boys in the home in 1946 and 1950, John and was unable to find a death certificate for William, but did find one for John – it officially registers his death at 16 months. Under cause of death it listed "congenital idiot" and "measles". An inspection report of the home in 1947 had some more details about John."He was born normal and healthy, almost nine pounds (4kg) in weight," Anna said. "By the time he's 13 months old, he's emaciated with a voracious appetite, and has no control over bodily functions."Then he's dead three months later."An entry from the institution's book of "discharges" says William died in 1951 – she does not know where either is who set up the Tuam Babies Family Group for survivors and relatives, said the children have been given a voice."We all know their names. We all know they existed as human beings."Now, the work begins to find out the full extent of what lies beneath that patch of grass in Tuam. 'Absolutely tiny' The excavation is expected to take about two years."It's a very challenging process – really a world-first," said Daniel MacSweeney, the head of the operation, who has helped find missing bodies in conflict zones such as explained that the remains would have been mixed together and that an infant's femur - the body's largest bone - is only the size of an adult's finger."They're absolutely tiny," he said. "We need to recover the remains very, very carefully – to maximise the possibility of identification."The difficulty of identifying the remains "can't be underestimated", he however long it takes, there will be people like Anna waiting for news - hoping to hear about sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts and cousins they never had the chance to meet. Details of help and support with child bereavement are available in the UK at BBC Action Line
Irish Independent
29-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Independent
‘I have tried to be honest and frank including mistakes and regrets as well as triumphs' – Leo Varadkar set to publish memoir this September
He signed a six-figure book deal with Sandycove, an imprint of the publisher Penguin, last year following a bidding war for the rights to his autobiography that involved nine publishers. The former leader of Fine Gael, who resigned as both taoiseach and party leader in a shock announcement last April, said he has 'tried to be honest and frank' in his account. The book, which is titled Speaking My Mind, will be released on September 11. 'I served in government at one of the most interesting periods in history - the aftermath of the economic crash, Brexit, transformative referendums and the pandemic,' he said, sharing the cover of the book to social media earlier today. "The book is both personal and political and I hope it will give the reader new insights into that time. I have tried to be honest and frank including mistakes and regrets as well as triumphs.' Mr Varadkar was awarded the title of 'Hauser Leader' at Harvard University's Kennedy School's Centre for Public Leadership earlier this year, where he is currently guest lecturing. In a statement released by his publisher when he signed with them last year, Mr Varadkar said: 'I am really enjoying writing my story and I was keen to do so while it was still fresh in my head. It's as much a personal memoir as it is a book about political history. "There is so much people know already about my time at the top but there is almost as much that they don't. I have the freedom now to say things I could not while holding office and I have enough distance to reflect on the mistakes I made as much as what was achieved.' The former Fine Gael leader was elected to the Dáil in Dublin West in 2007 at the age of 28. He contested the party leadership election following the resignation of Enda Kenny in 2017 and was elected taoiseach that year at the age of 38. Mr Varadkar is one of a number of former taoisigh to publish his memoirs, including Brian Cowen and the late Albert Reynolds. In 2008, former taoiseach Bertie Ahern agreed a €400,000-plus publishing deal with Cornerstone Publishing, a subsidiary company of US publishers Random House.
Irish Examiner
17-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Examiner
Irish Examiner view: A gamble on the long game with China
It is a truism in the West that one of the national characteristics of the Chinese peoples is an abiding interest in the influence of luck on everyday lives. Destinies can be decided by the zodiac calendar; relations governed by computations of the personality and compatibility of 12 animal signs; decisions delayed because dates are inauspicious. Gambling is hugely popular and the games — Pai gow, or mahjong for example — can appear fiendishly complicated to untutored eyes. It is nearly 12 months since Mr He Xiangdong, China's ambassador to Ireland, took a sponsored page in the Irish Examiner to reflect on 45 years of diplomatic ties between China and Ireland. While he pressed all the normal cultural buttons — namechecking the GAA, Yeats, Joyce, Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, Riverdance and Westlife — it was the burgeoning business relationship which formed the bedrock of his observations. In the 13 years since the then Taoiseach Enda Kenny visited Beijing to establish the 'Strategic Partnership for Mutually Beneficial Cooperation' China has become the world's second largest economy. Trade between the two countries in 2023 was estimated at just under €20bn, 4,200 times the level that existed in 1979. Irish exports have surged fivefold since that Enda Kenny visit, making the Republic one of four EU countries to maintain a trade surplus. Chinese investments in Ireland are around €10bn supporting thousands of jobs. Nearly 50,000 Chinese citizens study, work, and live here. Because this is now a major relationship, it is incumbent upon us to maintain a clear view about what China is attempting to achieve internationally and its potential consequences for us, and for our European partners. While we are reaping economic bounty, matters are much more complicated when we consider the new world order. The Chinese ambassador was keen to stress the importance of international law within a system centred on the United Nations. But this is difficult to reconcile with China's attitude towards the invasion of Ukraine and its steadfast help, alongside North Korea and Iran, for Vladimir Putin. On important occasions China's leader Xi Jinping has made supportive public statements and symbolic appearances alongside the Russian leader. The most recent of these was on Russia's VE Day at a time that European and American pressure was mounting for a ceasefire and negotiations to deliver a settlement. China has actively assisted Moscow to evade financial and economic sanctions. This matters because what happens with Ukraine, and the reaction of our faltering democracies to it, will establish the playbook by which the future conflict over Taiwan will be enacted if, and when, the People's Republic makes its move. In recreating another economic dependency, we risk making the same fatal error that handicapped us in 2014 when Crimea was annexed. On that occasion it was Europe's appetite for gas and oil which clouded judgements and heightened desire for shabby compromise. This time it is Chinese technology and innovation which is establishing itself in all our markets. The AI start-up DeepSeek, and the technology and EV giants Huawei and BYD are well-known global players. It is the leading nation for electric vehicles, solar panels and drones and is driving to the front in the robotics industry. But even more significant is the grip that China has on the supply and processing capacity for rare earth minerals which are the key component of tomorrow's industries and without which the chances of meeting net zero climate targets are precisely zero. China controls 69% of rare earth production and over 90% of global processing capacity. Part of its response to the Trump tariffs was to place new export controls on rare earth elements. This leverage is not down to luck despite Chinese belief in the importance of providence. It is a matter of calculation and strategy. Beijing is playing the long game. Europe and Ireland must not be gulled. It would be strange indeed to protest so volubly over Palestine and then at some stage in the future allow Taiwan to be taken over on the nod. Cork celebration of Rory Gallagher It may never be as big as Graceland but it is entirely appropriate that Ireland, and Cork in particular, should do more to celebrate the memory of Rory Gallagher, the guitar legend who sold 30m albums and influenced a generation of musicians. This summer is the 30th anniversary of his untimely death at the age of 47 when he contracted what was then a little-known infection — MRSA — three months after a liver transplant in Kings College Hospital, London. Cork Rocks for Rory will see photographic and original memorabilia exhibitions this June, as well as a city-wide walking trail that will commemorate the life and legacy of the blues and rock Fin Costello/Redferns Now his estate, working with Cork City Council and Cork City Libraries, is planning a series of events and activities as a rolling tribute to the man that the Lord Mayor, Dan Boyle, describes as Cork's 'finest cultural export across the world'. Cork Rocks for Rory will see photographic and original memorabilia exhibitions this June, as well as a city-wide walking trail that will commemorate the life and legacy of the blues and rock icon. Events taking place from June 14 include a display of Gallagher's first guitar. Exhibitions will include first recordings; never-before-seen images of the musician; a display of some of Gallagher's handwritten lyrics; selections from his personal vinyl and book collections, and a display of tour memorabilia, instruments, and amps. One of Gallagher's best known tracks was 'A Million Miles Away.' We can remember this summer that this is how far recognition of his talent and contribution has spread. Who is going to have the last word? There are very few people in this world who are more far-sighted than the Canadian Margaret Atwood whose coruscating observations of what has happened to Western society will be compulsory reading for the next century. Atwood, author of more than 70 books of prose and poetry, has won two Booker prizes and is feted for the insights provided in her landmark dystopian novel, The Handmaid's Tale, and her portrayal of a world changed irrevocably by genetics, eco-terrorism, and technology, the compelling Oryx and Crake trilogy. She is famous for asserting that her plotlines are drawn from events which have taken place, or are possible within the current state of human knowledge and experience. So when, at the age of 85, she says that she cannot remember another point in her life 'when words themselves have felt under such threat' we should sit up and pay attention. In an acceptance speech for a 'freedom to publish prize' at the British Book Awards, she observed that political and religious polarisation, once on the wane, has increased alarmingly in the past decade. 'The world feels to me more like the 1930s and 40s at present than it has in the intervening 80 years,' she said. The award for the book of the year went to Patriot by Alexei Navalny, the opponent of Vladimir Putin who was poisoned and died in an Arctic prison, or 'corrective colony', where he was serving a 19-year sentence. Margaret Atwood. Atwood commented tartly that she had never been imprisoned, although she may have to 'revise that statistic if I attempt to cross into the United States in the near future'. Authors and original thinkers have, perhaps, a more compelling case to be listened to than, say, the Belfast rappers Kneecap, who have been most recently drawn into controversy over artistic freedoms. Those with experience can often take advantage of their fame and knowledge to provide acute commentary and warning. The Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn may not be as well-read as he was when he won the Nobel Prize for The Gulag Archipelago, his devastating insight into Soviet Russia. But the predictions he provided in a series of lecture tours in 1975 and 1976 resonate alongside Atwood's critique. He thought that Europe, the US, and Britain were veering towards moral and spiritual bankruptcy. With it would disappear the world's one hope against tyranny and totalitarianism. Solzhenitsyn's Warning to the West is still available online. It repays the reading.
Irish Times
03-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Enda Kenny's life and times offer five lessons for today's politicians
For the first time in a long time, the smiley Mayo head of Enda Kenny adorned the front page of Thursday's The Irish Times, as the former taoiseach received what is surely an overdue honorary doctorate from DCU. Kenny, a youthful 74, looks like a man who is enjoying a good retirement. It's fair to say he earned it – a TD for 45 years, twice taoiseach, he was Fine Gael 's most successful-ever leader and led one of the most consequential governments in the country's history. Here are five lessons for politics and politicians from the life and times of Enda. 1: Stick at it Kenny's rise through the ranks was hardly meteoric. Elected a TD in a 1975 byelection caused by the death of his father, he became a junior minister after 11 years in the Dáil and a cabinet minister after 20. He ran for the leadership of his party unsuccessfully in 2001. It was only after Fine Gael was massacred at the 2002 election that Kenny finally secured the top job. With Bertie Ahern in his pomp, leading Fine Gael was a daunting task. But Kenny slaved away and rebuilt the party, leading it to the brink of power eight years later in the wake of the financial crash. He still had to withstand a challenge to his leadership from within the party, in 2010, just months before he would win the general election (an episode that demonstrated Fine Gael's then entertaining habit of trying to knife its own leader). Kenny beat off the challenge – testament to his grit, resilience and general bouncebackability. They're vital qualities for any would-be leader. 2: Get the right people Kenny was able to beat back the 2010 challenge largely due to the help of Phil Hogan , his enforcer in the party. Hogan would later be Kenny's nominee as European Commissioner, a gig regarded as probably the biggest plum in the political orchard. Reconstituting his front bench afterwards, Kenny brought back as finance spokesman the former party leader Michael Noonan , who would go on to play an indispensable role in the Fine Gael-Labour government. Kenny also resisted the temptation to exile the plotters, and so Richard Bruton, Leo Varadkar, Lucinda Creighton, Brian Hayes and Simon Coveney would all go on to play roles in government. Kenny surrounded himself with a group of able, hardworking and completely loyal staff and advisers – Andrew McDowell, Ciaran Conlon, Feargal Purcell, Mark Kenneally, Mark Mortell and others – who were central to his achievements. [ Enda Kenny to get special recognition gong at EY Entrepreneur of the Year awards Opens in new window ] 3: And get on with them Kenny is a nice man – and most people who meet him like him. That doesn't mean he isn't tough – you have to be tough to be taoiseach – but he made an effort to get on with people. In private, Kenny's staff at all levels speak warmly of him, even when they are acknowledging his mistakes or political failings. They like him. Even when the 2011-16 government, amid the depths of the bailout, was under the most extreme pressure as it implemented the Troika-mandated austerity programme, Kenny kept relations with his Labour counterpart Eamon Gilmore mostly on an even keel and kept a sense of coherence in his cabinet. He is by nature gregarious, but he had to work at leadership, too. READ MORE 4: Beware the easy option Most political decisions are not straightforward choices between the good option and the bad. Rather, they are choices between which is the lesser of two evils. In 2011, Kenny faced the question of whether Ireland should default on the gargantuan debts the banks had run up and which had been transferred to the State. Default was the option favoured by many politicians contemplating the alternative of years of austerity to fix the public finances. Gerry Adams said he would tell the IMF to go home and take their money with them. The Sunday Independent found itself in rare agreement with Adams: 'Default! Say the People!' shouted one front page. Some economists thought the debts were so huge that Ireland would end up defaulting anyway and might as well get it over with. Repaying the bailout was certainly painful and there are very legitimate arguments about how the burden was spread across society in tax increases, cuts to public spending and pay cuts. But on its own terms at least, the approach worked – as the public finances were fixed, the economy bounced back with astonishing vigour. Defaulting would have shut Ireland out from the bond markets, meaning that the gap between what Ireland was raising in taxes and spending on running the State would have needed to be closed overnight. That would have required adjustments of about one third of the total government budget, or €19 billion. But yeah, default, say the people. Kenny and his government did the wise and difficult thing. It turned out to be unpopular. But does anyone seriously now believe we should have defaulted in 2011? 5: Don't expect to be thanked Of course, the years of austerity were tough – and many of the measures were enormously unpopular. Fine Gael unwisely asked people to 'keep the recovery going' in the 2016 election, when many people weren't feeling any recovery at all – and got monstered by voters. Labour dumped its leader in a panic in 2014 but still lost nearly all its seats in 2016, and spent the next political cycle apologising in opposition for what it did in government. That did not turn out to be a wise tactic either. [ 'I have the freedom now to say things I could not while holding office': Leo Varadkar pens autobiography Opens in new window ] However you look at it, the Fine Gael-Labour government – albeit at great social and economic cost – restored the country's fortunes. That looked unlikely in 2011. Maybe virtue is its own reward. So the final lesson from Enda? Even when you get things right, don't expect to be thanked.
