The Long And the Short Of It
The Mayor of Limerick, Jim Long, has been embroiled in a number of controversies recently. So who is he? What does he represent? And is he really a racist, as his accusers claim?
Olaf Tyaransen, 18 Apr 2012
Do you believe in God?
I would. I pray to God. You have to have something to believe in, and we’re no different to any other religion in the world. Rightly or wrongly, I believe I can speak to God any time I wish. I can speak to him in the car, in the office, wherever. I can honestly say that not a day goes by that I wouldn’t make reference to God. “Jesus, help me out here for a minute.” You’re always conscious that there’s a spiritual side of life.
Did you go to secondary school?
No, I educated myself. I put my own meanings to words from the books I would read. I would write down two or three pages, about the books I read, so I got the value out of them. I think that was a great ability, to write down in two or three pages what the book was about.
Did you stay on working in kitchens?
I did, and then I worked for CIE as a bike porter. My father got me the job there when I was 16. I stayed there for maybe two years and then moved out to Shannon, to the industrial estate, and became a machinist.
So you were always a blue collar worker?
I was always involved in labour. Even when I was very active in Fine Gael, my role at executive level was limited, but it was always on the labour panels. I was a very strong trade unionist. When the Troubles broke out, and Bloody Sunday happened, I actually deliberately, single-handedly, shut down the full Shannon industrial estate, virtually on my own, because I was shocked at what happened. I went out to the personnel manager and I said, ‘Look, I want this factory shut at 12 o’clock’. He said, ‘If you even attempt it, you’re sacked!’ So I said, ‘I don’t feel well’, and I clocked out, so I couldn’t get sacked. I went into another factory, because we weren’t unionised at the time, and I went to the next guy and said, ‘At 12 o’clock, we’re marching around the industrial estate’. So at five to 12, everyone clocked out and the whole industrial estate shut down. We walked around for two hours. A couple of the lads asked, ‘Where do we go from here?’ And I said, ‘We meet at seven o’clock on O’Connell Street in Limerick and we have our own little rally’. We managed to get placards made and printed up, and a couple of thousand of us met in O’Connell Street. Unfortunately, the sad thing was there was a British Rail office on O’Connell Street that was damaged, but it wasn’t premeditated (laughs). The crowd got overawed.
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