Former Irish prime minister Garret FitzGerald, Ireland’s most popular elder statesman, who twice served as prime minister and played a crucial role in paving the way for peace in Northern Ireland, has died at the age of 85, his family said on Thursday.
Known universally as Garret and much loved for his dotty professor persona, the erudite economist played an important role in shaping modern Ireland.
His death, after a short illness, prompted tributes from around the world, including Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission.
ROLE IN PEACE
As prime minister in the 1980s, FitzGerald persuaded then-British prime minister Margaret Thatcher to give Dublin an official toehold in Northern Ireland, creating a channel for the two governments to overcome decades of mistrust, which led to an historic peace deal in 1998.
That groundwork was crowned in stunning fashion on the eve of FitzGerald’s death, when the British monarch delivered a landmark speech of reconciliation in Dublin.
Irish President Mary McAleese told the state broadcaster RTE: “While I am so desperately sorry that he did not get to any of the events this week, I’m so glad he lived long enough to see a time when Her Majesty the Queen came to Ireland and made so many wonderful gestures of reconciliation. He was utterly unique, one of nature’s political gentlemen ... He was the quintessential public servant.”
Ireland’s parliament suspended normal business so deputies could pay tribute to FitzGerald and the Irish tricolour flew at half-mast on all government buildings.
‘ROME RULE’
FitzGerald, whose mother was a Protestant from Northern Ireland, understood that community’s fear of “Rome Rule” and he strove to end the Catholic Church’s influence over the Irish Republic by liberalizing the sale of condoms and trying to introduce divorce.
Unafraid to take unpopular decisions, he pushed through tough spending cuts to tackle Ireland’s runaway national debt, but was punished for it in the polls.
He stepped down as leader of the center-right Fine Gael party in 1987 after it lost power that year. Although he retired from politics in 1992, he continued to play an active role in public life right up to his death.
As foreign minister in the 1970s, FitzGerald raised Ireland’s status in what was then known as European Economic Community with his innovative views, energy and fluency in French and campaigned for a ‘Yes’ vote in the second Irish referendum on a European charter in 2009.
Vocal about Ireland’s current financial problems, he wrote a weekly newspaper column and attended economic briefings in Dublin until shortly before his death.
Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, wearing a black tie as a mark of respect, recalled that FitzGerald often “went down side-alleys in terms of discussions and they could drift on for hours”.
“It’s a legacy that very few will ever match,” Kenny told RTE about FitzGerald’s career.
‘EYE FOR AN EYE’: Two of the men were shot by a male relative of the victims, whose families turned down the opportunity to offer them amnesty, the Supreme Court said Four men were yesterday publicly executed in Afghanistan, the Supreme Court said, the highest number of executions to be carried out in one day since the Taliban’s return to power. The executions in three separate provinces brought to 10 the number of men publicly put to death since 2021, according to an Agence France-Presse tally. Public executions were common during the Taliban’s first rule from 1996 to 2001, with most of them carried out publicly in sports stadiums. Two men were shot around six or seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the center
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
The US will help bolster the Philippines’ arsenal and step up joint military exercises, Manila’s defense chief said, as tensions between Washington and China escalate. The longtime US ally is expecting a sustained US$500 million in annual defense funding from Washington through 2029 to boost its military capabilities and deter China’s “aggression” in the region, Philippine Secretary of Defense Gilberto Teodoro said in an interview in Manila on Thursday. “It is a no-brainer for anybody, because of the aggressive behavior of China,” Teodoro said on close military ties with the US under President Donald Trump. “The efforts for deterrence, for joint resilience
RSS