The Hot Press Interview with Thomas Pringle

Plonking the tape recorder down on the table, I mention to Thomas Pringle TD that our paths last crossed when he was first elected as an Independent TD for the Donegal constituency.

“When was that, Jason? 2011,” he says. “It’s mad, isn’t it?”

The now 50-year-old landed himself a seat on a budget of just five grand, taking the political scalp of the then Tánaiste, Fianna Fáil’s Mary Coughlan, en route.

As he occupies the hot seat, Thomas laughs at how the Hot Press Interview has a reputation for causing controversy in political circles. “I’ll not be that exciting,” he says, self-effacingly.

I’m not so sure. Thomas is the son of Peter Pringle, aka ‘The Fugitive’. On July 7 1980, the extremist paramilitary group, Saor Éire, attempted to raid a bank in Ballaghaderreen, Co. Roscommon. The three raiders were fleeing when the getaway car crashed into a Garda vehicle; they tried to shoot their way out, killing Gardaí John Morley and Henry Byrne.

Paddy McCann – himself the subject of a major Hot Press Interview – and Colm O’Shea were quickly arrested near the scene. After 12 days, the chase led authorities to Galway, where Peter Pringle had been living since his marriage broke down. A member of the Official IRA until 1972, he had been interned in the Curragh. He was arrested and charged with capital murder and convicted. Unlike the other two suspects, however, Peter always maintained his innocence.

The last man on death row in Ireland, he first had his sentence commuted to 40-years. Later, the conviction was found to be unsafe, effectively declaring his innocence.

The Donegal TD’s step-mother, meanwhile, is Sunny Jacobs, who like Peter Pringle, was on death row in the USA and subsequently found to be innocent – shortly after her own husband had been executed for the same murder. Sunny – another Hot Press interviewee – was portrayed by Susan Sarandon on Broadway and in film.

Taking all of that into account, you could hardly say that Thomas comes from a typical family!

Jason O’Toole: When I first met you in the Dáil you were wearing a new suit. You had to go out and buy it specially for the new gig!

Thomas Pringle: (Laughs) I’ve had to buy a couple since then as well. That’s my working clothes, as I call it. I think you have to wear them, unfortunately.

You were never tempted to go down the Mick Wallace route of wearing pink?

No. He’d already captured that market, anyway! Funnily, I think people take you more seriously when you do wear them, which is kind of sad. I got the suit the week I got elected. I never really had one before and I didn’t expect to get elected, either. So, that’s probably why I didn’t have one.

You took a big political scalp in Mary Coughlan, who was Tánaiste at the time. Were you getting dagger eyes at the count?

(Laughs) Ah, yeah, that’s par for the course. You just get on with it. It makes it sweet when you take down the Tánaiste. But I was more in shock that I actually got elected.

I heard your mother laughed when you told her you wanted to get into politics.

Yeah, that’s right. It was six weeks before the Local Elections in 1999 that I said I would run. I was doing exams through work. I had to get them out of the way first before I could start canvassing. My mother thought I was joking. She just laughed. Again, we didn’t expect to get elected. That started the whole ball rolling.

Your father came from a republican background. Did that inspire you to join Sinn Féin?

The family was always republican – my mother and my father. All my background, growing up, would’ve been not necessarily Sinn Féin but republican politics. So I wasn’t going to join Fianna Fáil, or Fine Gael. If I was going to join a party, Sinn Féin would’ve been the party. I don’t regret joining Sinn Féin but I don’t regret leaving Sinn Féin either! It was a good learning experience.

Were you ever tempted to join the IRA?

(Shaking his head) No, it would never have been on my radar at all.

Not even as a rebellious teenager?

No. I was more interested in going to school. I would’ve been involved in the H-Block protests and stuff like that, but purely as a protestor.

Did it turn nasty when you left Sinn Féin?

It turned nasty when I was in Sinn Féin! That’s why I left. I was in Sinn Féin from February 2004 until November 2007. It was a very difficult time. It’s only actually when you come out of it, and that you can look back on it, that you realise how bad it was.

What forced you to leave?

The road that they had picked to go down in Donegal, I wasn’t part of it – except to try and silence me and finish me off! That’s the way it was. I just said, ‘Enough is enough’. I think if I had stayed, they would’ve looked at deselecting me for the next council elections, and that would’ve been how they would’ve dealt with it. I wanted to pre-empt that.

So they didn’t want to see you as an elected representative?

I don’t think so. It’s over 10 years ago now and it’s a very small part of my involvement in politics.

Do you think Sinn Féin have set out to target your seat?

Yeah, in the last election they definitely did. Now that Donegal is a five-seater, if they want to try and get the second seat back, they’ll have to try and target somebody’s seat and, I suppose, they would see me as being the likeliest candidate. And I think from a Sinn Féin point of view, they would want to see that they’re the only ‘opposition’ in Donegal.

So, they’d rather push you, a left-wing republican, out than the right-wing parties.

I think they’d be quite happy to see two Fianna Fáil and one Fine Gael and two Sinn Féin seats in the county. They would rather see that than, for example, they’d take one of the Fianna Fáil seats and see me still there. They want to present themselves as being the only opposition that there is in the country.

Have they ever played any dirty tricks on you?

(Laughs) I think all the dirty tricks were when I was in Sinn Féin! So, anything they could do after I left Sinn Féin wouldn’t make any difference.

What do you make of someone like Gerry Adams distancing himself from terrorism and saying, “I wasn’t involved in the IRA.”

It is farcical. But it is probably understandable too.

Minister Jim Daly recently caused a major controversy when he revealed in Hot Press that he’d have no ideological objection to being in coalition with Sinn Féin.

(Laughs) Fine Gael will go into coalition with whoever will keep them in power! Like Fianna Fáil. The thing over the next while is whether Sinn Féin will sell themselves out for power. The jury’s still out on that. And that’s the reality of the situation. So, I don’t care what Sinn Féin are going to do. But in saying that, we do need to promote an alternative. The Independents 4 Change, which I’m a member of, a Dáil grouping – we have to promote an alternative to Fine Gael/Fianna Fáil in power. And that might require a leap of faith in regards to Sinn Féin and hoping that they might be part of that change.

So, you reckon if Fine Gael need to make up the numbers, they will strike a deal with Sinn Féin?

There’s no doubt about it. I think ultimately from Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil’s points of view, if they can take Sinn Féin into the fold, that will mean then that they’re back into having three-quarters of the Dáil backing their right-wing ideology. Over the last two terms of the Dáil, we have shown that the Dáil can be different – that’s what Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil fear the most.

As a self-proclaimed republican, were you approached by Fine Gael to prop up this current regime?

Fine Gael did try to talk to everybody. I met Simon Coveney on two occasions in the run-up to the formation of government! And when I just heard the bullshit they were telling me, I said, ‘I’m not going to have anything to do with this.’ I met Micheál Martin, as well. But there was no way that Fine Gael were going to meet my agenda or the agenda for rural Ireland. I just said no way.

Considering that recent controversy, it’s ironic that Simon was asking an ex-Sinn Féin-er to go into government.

(Roars laughing) The fact was I was an Independent and that would work for them. I don’t know how serious he was, but he came up from Dublin to talk to me about coming on board – and probably, if I had come onboard with them, it would’ve given them a strong sense that they were doing something right. But there was obviously no way that I could have accepted what they were proposing. To have to go along with what the government was doing just to get stuff for your own constituency, that’s not something I could live with myself on.

Your constituency was the only one in the entire country to reject the referendum to Repeal the 8th.

There were a number of reasons for it. Donegal has been left behind. When I ask questions about Donegal in the Dáil, the government says Donegal is doing well because unemployment figures have dropped – it’s emigration that has dropped the unemployment figures. So, a kind of protest vote is a factor. Another factor is that other politicians who were supposed to be supporting the referendum didn’t actually put the work in!

So other politicians in the constituency didn’t pull their weight?

It was very obvious. If you look at the returns, the areas where I was strong and I’d been canvassing, there was about 55% Yes votes; and the rest of the county, overall, was 48%. Pearse Doherty, Pádraig Mac Lochlainn and Joe McHugh were the national politicians who were supposed to be supporting the referendum. While a lot of Sinn Féin membership did support it, I don’t think it got full support from Pearse Doherty and Pádraig Mac Lochlainn. And it got no support from Joe McHugh, the government representative.

Were there dirty tricks going on during the campaign from the No side?

Tearing down posters – that’s par for the course anyway. I wouldn’t pass any remarks on that. Every poster we put up was flanked top to bottom by the No posters very quickly – that goes on in every election. There was a lot of verbal abuse when canvassing.

Could you potentially lose your seat because ‘pro-life’ constituents will turn against you?

Well, that’s not a factor in my decision. You have to do the right thing. And I believe repealing the 8th is the right thing. If I lose my seat over it, so be it.

Do you believe that there could be a return to violence in the North over Brexit?

I don’t think that there’s any basis for that. I think Brexit does more in terms of letting people in the south know that there is a difference: there are two jurisdictions on the island. I think that had, over the last couple of years, become a bit clouded. And, ultimately, we need the island united – and that’s the way it should be. And anything that shows that difference, I think, is valuable.

Do you think Donald Trump should be invited to Ireland?

I think it’s the wrong thing to do. The American people voted for Trump – that’s fair enough, and I can accept that, but it doesn’t mean we have to accept him in Ireland. Trump is appalling. There’s no other word to describe him. He’s not going to be there forever. But you’d have to respect a visit because of the American people, I suppose.

You were ill last year…

I had a stroke last August, which I was amazed at. I’ve been recovering ever since. I was out of the Dáil from August and I returned in January. I’m recovering but it requires a change of lifestyle. I’m very lucky: it was a milder stroke and it had very little physical impact. I was kind of surprised that it happened at my age (laughs), but I’m getting older than I think I am! Actually, over 30 percent of stroke victims are younger than me, which I was really surprised at.

It wasn’t a case of your life flashing before your eyes?

No, I actually didn’t know anything about it! I got up late on a Saturday afternoon, which was very unusual for me; normally I’d get up at around nine o’clock on Saturdays. But I didn’t get up till two o’clock. I went downstairs, had my breakfast, put the washing on. And my son came in and said, ‘I’m getting the doctor!’ I was walking around as if I was a zombie (laughs). Apparently I was talking gobbledygook for a couple of days over in Letterkenny Hospital. But then I started to come around very quickly. Thankfully, there’s been no lasting damage. If I’d been on my own I’d probably just have pottered around for the rest of the day not knowing that anything was wrong – and that would’ve done more damage to me.

What type of character were you growing up?

As a teenager, I would’ve been kind of serious. But also, I was into heavy metal and AC/DC. I had badges and all that kind of stuff. I would’ve been quite political as well, arguing with teachers over politics and that kind of stuff. I wasn’t a sporty person.

Did you have long hair?

I did alright (laughs). I had long hair. And I was mad into AC/DC. They were my major band. I had all their albums. I’d go up to concerts as well. It was good fun.

Did you get expelled from school for arguing with teachers?

Ah, no, nothing like that. I got put out of the class once or twice. I would’ve been classified as a good student.

What other bands did you like?

AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, all that heavy metal stuff, up until I was about 18 – and then I grew up (laughs). The first concert I went to was Dexys Midnight Runners in the King’s Hall in Belfast. I was only about 12 or 13. That was some experience. I’ve got back into them, Dexys Midnight Runners, in the last couple of years. The first album was very good.

Hot Press is celebrating its 41st anniversary with this edition.

I’m a bit older than it myself (laughs)! In the overall Irish context, Hot Press has been very important as a voice for young people. On a national scale, Hot Press has been very important in having that view out there. And young people across the country getting to see those political views – that has been crucial.

You’d have been a keen reader of Michael D. Higgins’ column. What about the big political interviews – like when Hot Press published the first in-depth one ever with Gerry Adams at the height of the Troubles?

Yeah. Those articles would’ve made the headlines in other papers as well. Hot Press was always at the front, leading the charge in relation to the perception of Northern politics in the rest of the country.

How old were you when you first got pissed?

Well, the family story is that I first got pissed at my sister’s christening party. I don’t remember that. She was 11 months younger than me. Apparently I was going around in my nappy polishing off all the bottles that were left on the floor by people at the party. But I probably would’ve been around 16 or 17.

Did you try marijuana growing up?

I tried it in my 20s. I always found it overrated. I couldn’t see the advantage in it at all. I take pints and that’ll be it.

How important was chasing girls and sex for you as a teenager?

It was very important, alright. But I never had much success at it (laughs). And that probably made it more important. I suppose when I was growing up, it was a lot more innocent than it is now. You always wanted to chase girls, but I never had the nerve to. I never had the way with words that some of my friends had: they’d make a success of it.

How old were you when you lost your virginity?

I was old enough (laughs)! In my twenties.

Was it all you hoped it’d be?

I think it was a fumble and rush. You have to learn after that then.

You were 12-years-old when your parents broke up. It must’ve been pretty tough.

People say it’s a hard time. But it’s the only time I know. You have to live it and get on with it and, hopefully, come out the other end. It was difficult, alright. I suppose it was unusual in a Killybegs context as well, where we lived.

That was because your dad was drinking too much?

Yeah. He was an alcoholic. My mother had put up with him long enough and couldn’t take it anymore. It’s totally understandable.

At 14 years-old, your life was turned upside down when your dad was accused of murder.

That was bizarre. Again, you kind of just get on with it and live it. I would’ve spent from then until my late teenage years going down to visit my father. I’d go down as often as I could, into Portlaoise visiting him and keeping in contact.

A difficult journey to make from Donegal.

You’d go to Dublin and then get the bus down from Dublin. I’d always laugh: when you’d get the Cork bus down from Dublin, the bus always stopped at the prison for us without ever being asked. I always find that amazing. I suppose it’s maybe the only time that people with Northern accents got on the bus (laughs)! But I always thought that that was funny: the bus always stopped at the prison.

It can’t have been a pleasant experience going in there.

No, it wasn’t. What’s interesting too: coming out of it was actually harder than getting into it! They’d ‘forget’ the keys when you’d be coming out and you’d end up missing your bus, which would be a regular occurrence.

Should we put the word ‘forget’ in quotation marks?

Oh, yeah, definitely.

It’s ironic that the resentment you might have felt towards your father for leaving the family home dissipated when he ended up in prison.

Yeah, yeah. The focus would’ve been on him being in prison and dealing with that. There wouldn’t have been any focus really on him leaving. My mother always let us know what was happening. She was a very good woman and strong – so there was no mystery involved.

When you first heard that your father was arrested for murder what ran through your mind?

Basically, that he didn’t do it. The Guards were about the house, so you knew they were looking for him. To be honest, we would’ve had no faith in the judicial system in terms of finding out that he didn’t do it, or proving his innocence. The Special Criminal Court was only designed to get convictions – that’s why it was there and that’s the way it turned out.

He was given the death penalty.

He was sentenced to death. I remember when I was on a school tour and we were coming home on the bus in the evening and it was on the radio that the death sentence had been commuted to 40 years in prison.

But did you fear he was going to be hanged like the judge had ordered?

You didn’t expect that they were going to carry out the death penalty, because they hadn’t carried out any death penalties since 1954. But, apparently, there was a debate at Cabinet about whether they should go ahead with it or not. My mother would’ve always said that they wouldn’t do it, that it would be commuted. So, we never really thought it was going to happen.

You must’ve believed he’d spend his life behind bars?

It was a long sentence. It would’ve been all his life in prison. But my father always maintained his innocence and set out to prove it.

He was locked up for almost 15 years…

It took an awful long time because of the way the prison system works. You know, getting stuff organised, and getting even a typewriter took years. Visits were always taken up with discussing his case and about how his case was coming on.

Did you think he’d get out?

You prepare yourself and say, it’s going to be 40 years. And if he gets out it’s going to be a bonus. I didn’t think that the State would allow him to win the case because they had too much to lose. But he did win it. The State tried to oppose it as much as possible – and are still trying to oppose him. But he kept pushing it, he kept going, and it worked for him.

It must have been a very emotional day when he was released.

Yeah, it was. The High Court, first of all, ordered a re-trial and he had to go back to jail – and that was very mixed emotions. One of the judges said that – they were sitting in the Special Criminal Court the following day – they would hear a bail hearing, which was an indication that they were willing to let him out. We had to wait another day for that to happen. It did happen and it was a great result. It was the start then of a different process. You get to know somebody after they’ve come out of jail.

Are you guys close today?

Yeah, we would be close enough. We see him as regularly as we can.

Do you get on well with Sunny?

Yeah, we get on grand. We go down as often as we can to Galway to visit him. They seem very happy together too, which is good. Sunny is sound and she gets on very well with my kids.

Sunny once told Hot Press that she was introduced to your dad through the musician Steve Earle, who is well-known for his anti-death penalty campaigning. Your dad and Sunny now run a sanctuary in Connemara for former death row inmates who are found innocent.

They could both understand each other’s story, both of them having been on death row. There’d be very few people that you could meet around the world that would have the same experience as either of them. So it’s understandable that the two of them got together.