The McGahons

I’ve just listened to another episode of ‘Free State’, the podcast starring Joe Brolly. He was talking about John McGahon, who is a Fine Gael candidate in the South’s election and who, while found innocent by a jury of his peers, when the case was referred to the High Court, was promptly fined 39,000 euro. For why? For being involved in a post-pub fight (“A scuffle” as FG leader Simon Harris originally called it) where he punched a man lying on the ground in the face repeatedly, to the point where the man, Breen White, had to be hospitalised.

Anyway, I accept totally that we can’t choose our parents or ancestors, but the McGahons, Joe Brolly claimed, have some odd characteristics.

FG candidate John had a great-grandfather called T F McGahon and he was totally opposed to the War of Independence, Sinn Féin and the IRA.

The FG candidate’s grandfather Brendan McGahon was if anything more colourful again. He refused to shut his newsagent’s shop in Dundalk during the funeral of the hunger strikers in 1981. He was a member of the World anti-Communist League. He believed in prison and chemical castration for paedophiles. He was the only TD to oppose abolition of the death penalty. And as for gay people:

“The Lord provided us with sexual organs for a specific purpose. Homosexuals are like left-hand drivers driving on the right-hand side of the road.”

But I’d stress again: none of us can choose our family lineage. That said,   FG candidate John McGahon seems to have been singularly unlucky.

 https://www.tiktok.com/@virginmedianews/video/7438688637539159328

Breen White