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So farewell and goodbye to Mo Mowlam, a British politician who will be missed by more than just her family...
Nationalists, unionists pay tribute to Mo Mowlam
19/08/2005 - 10:54:48
Nationalist and unionist politicians have been paying tribute to former Northern Secretary Mo Mowlam, who died this morning from injuries sustained in a fall earlier this month.
Sinn Féin MP Martin McGuinness said the 55-year-old had brought a unique energy to the search for peace in the North and played a crucial role in the Good Friday Agreement negotiations.
He said there were times when she angered nationalists, particularly when she allowed an Orange Order march down the Garvaghy Road in Portadown.
However, Mr McGuinness said she would remembered fondly by the vast majority of Irish people.
Elsewhere, Democratic Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson said unionists had serious differences with Ms Mowlam, but she had been a breath of fresh air at Stormont.
Ulster Unionist Party leader Reg Empey, meanwhile, said he never agreed with her policies, but appreciated her work to boost the North's economy.
Achieving anything in Northern Ireland's peace process even without a brain tumour is remarkable.
Nationalists, unionists pay tribute to Mo Mowlam
19/08/2005 - 10:54:48
Nationalist and unionist politicians have been paying tribute to former Northern Secretary Mo Mowlam, who died this morning from injuries sustained in a fall earlier this month.
Sinn Féin MP Martin McGuinness said the 55-year-old had brought a unique energy to the search for peace in the North and played a crucial role in the Good Friday Agreement negotiations.
He said there were times when she angered nationalists, particularly when she allowed an Orange Order march down the Garvaghy Road in Portadown.
However, Mr McGuinness said she would remembered fondly by the vast majority of Irish people.
Elsewhere, Democratic Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson said unionists had serious differences with Ms Mowlam, but she had been a breath of fresh air at Stormont.
Ulster Unionist Party leader Reg Empey, meanwhile, said he never agreed with her policies, but appreciated her work to boost the North's economy.
Achieving anything in Northern Ireland's peace process even without a brain tumour is remarkable.
One of the surprises about the political career of Mo Mowlam, who died aged 55 on Friday, is that she won an international reputation as Labour's Northern Ireland Secretary despite fiercely resisting being sent there. When offered the job by Tony Blair in 1997 she bitterly resented her “exile” as she saw it away from the powerful core of the New Labour government.
The irony was that because of the perceived success of the Good Friday peace agreement, signed in 1998, she became a popular heroine and achieved a degree of fame which gave her a brief period of unrivalled political authority within the government. It was something she probably would never have achieved in one of the important economic posts she originally would have preferred.
Her status and for a time, at least, her personal power stemmed from two things: the bravura with which she embarked upon her first job as a minister even though she had not welcomed the Northern Ireland posting; and the bravery she showed in not allowing the diagnosis of a brain tumour to impede her political drive. She only found out she had cancer at Christmas 1996. Yet she insisted that she was prepared to fight the coming general election and then join Tony Blair's first cabinet.
She resented her incapacity and hated what happened to her as a result of her treatment .Yet she made political capital out of it, whipping off her prosthetic wig while talking to journalists or politicans to shock and win sympathy.It was an easy trick and always worked but there were few who realised that it was part of a performance.
The irony was that because of the perceived success of the Good Friday peace agreement, signed in 1998, she became a popular heroine and achieved a degree of fame which gave her a brief period of unrivalled political authority within the government. It was something she probably would never have achieved in one of the important economic posts she originally would have preferred.
Her status and for a time, at least, her personal power stemmed from two things: the bravura with which she embarked upon her first job as a minister even though she had not welcomed the Northern Ireland posting; and the bravery she showed in not allowing the diagnosis of a brain tumour to impede her political drive. She only found out she had cancer at Christmas 1996. Yet she insisted that she was prepared to fight the coming general election and then join Tony Blair's first cabinet.
She resented her incapacity and hated what happened to her as a result of her treatment .Yet she made political capital out of it, whipping off her prosthetic wig while talking to journalists or politicans to shock and win sympathy.It was an easy trick and always worked but there were few who realised that it was part of a performance.
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