Friday, August 24, 2012

Irish Parliamentary Leader Responds to American Tea Party Radio




From March, 2010, Irish President and Labour Party official Michael D Higgins responds with good old Irish spirit to a right-wing radio host to defend workers, regular people and affordable health care in the USA. This was from a radio broadcast in Boston, Massachusetts.

From Wikipedia: "Higgins was born in Limerick in 1941. When his father's health grew poor, with alcohol a contributing factor, his mother sent Higgins, aged five, and his four-year-old brother to live on his unmarried uncle and aunt's farm near Newmarket on Fergus, County Clare. His older twin sisters remained in Limerick. He was educated at Ballycar National School, County Clare; St. Flannan's College, Ennis; University College Galway (UCG); Indiana University; and Manchester University. As an undergraduate at UCG, he served as Vice Auditor of the College's Literary and Debating Society in 1963–1964, and rose to the position of Auditor in the 1964–1965 academic year. He also served as President of UCG Students' Union in 1964–65.
Higgins holds a graduate degree in sociology.

"In his academic career, he was a Statutory Lecturer in the Department of Political Science and Sociology at University College Galway and was a Visiting Professor at Southern Illinois University. He resigned his academic posts to concentrate fully on his political career."


The host is Michael Graham of Boston Newstalk 106-108fm.

5 comments:

  1. This is how to deal with the "wankers"...errr, ignorant fear-mongers, amongst us.

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  2. Good one Doug, more of those teapartiers should listen to this guy, but we know they wont. They have their own agenda and fear-mongering is the biggest facet of their movement.

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  3. You're probably right, Marty. It was just nice to seean educated European with real political experience call these amateur blowhards out.

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  4. Whilst Ireland doesn't have a health care system free at the point of access, Irish health services that are largely insurance based are more like those in the US than in the UK, but I was amused by Mr Higgins tirade in which he out-shock jocks the presenter, nice one Mick ...his soap box approach is a welcome respite from advertising and slick PR around the campaign trail....good on yer man!

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  5. So true, AA!

    I wasn't sure about the overall Irish medical scheme since the UK and Canada get most of the attention in the liberal and Left press over here.

    I thought it an old-fashioned "stem winder", with the speaker's heart and brain in full gear.

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