Death of Tony Gregory
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news report 
Friday January 02, 2009 17:48
by Justin Morahan
a champion of the underdog in Irish society
Tá Gaeilgeoir a raibh croí mór maith aige básaithe i mBaile Atha Cliath. Slán le laoch
Tony Gregory Independent TD passed away peacefully today after a year's illness at the age of 61.
He was a champion of every good cause you could think of in Ireland throughout his life time.
He fought for better housing for the deprived. Author of the famous "Gregory Deal" in which he received unprecedented benefits for his deprived constituency in Central Dublin in return for his vote to make Charlie Haughey Taoiseach, he immediately astounded the Dáil by putting details of the Deal on the Dáil record. He warned that if the deal was reneged on, he would withdraw his vote.
He was a supporter of all anti-war activities, spoke at anti-war rallies, attended press conferences supporting the Pitstop Ploughshares, opposed the Lisbon Treaty, making a famous appearance on RTE after it had been defeated.
He was a defender of human rights for all the deprived sections of society. He served a short prison sentence for non-violently defending the Moore Street traders who were being rooted out of Moore Street
He fought for animal rights and succeeded in getting legislation against hare coursing accepted in the Dáil.
Ireland has lost a great champion and a powerful voice for justice
Comments (33 of 33)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33He was also the first T.D to talk honestly about Heroin in Dublin.
While the role of a parlimentarian always has limits in what one might achieve in bettering society
it behoves us to pay credit where credit is due to one of the few
who can be said to have done the most possible
to attack injustice (including in the institutions) as long as he was involved in public life.
A voice for the working class, the deprived and the marginalised, a minority (and then some) of the members of the Dail. He will be sadly missed. My condolences to his partner and family.
The last time I met Tony was at the Lisbon election count.
While obviously very ill he stayed until the vote came in for Dublin Central.
When it did it was 57 % NO.
He had won his last victory.
He was a fighter to the end. He stayed among the people he represented.
He was not a phoney. He will be missed by the people of the area and by those on the Left.
May he rest in Peace. Condolences to his equally hard working brother Noel and to his family .
Yes i knew Tony ,He Was a thorough gentleman . I first met Tony when we began the ''Family Law Reform Group '' In 1986 ,Tony hated drug culture
and all that drug culture contained . Did People love him of course we did . He done the deal with Charlie Haughy in regard to inner city housing
as an independent T.D. for Dublin Central, He And C.J. BUILT homes ( not houses ) FOR MANY AN AREA , due to Tony being in the position of Independent
T.D. it suited Charlie and Thus The People Of Dublin.
Dont Forget Tony Gregory
Tony Gregory was a great man but let's not forget he voted with Fianna Fail who presided over handing over millions of acres to developers in the inner city. Also problems never went away in the inner city-theyescalated. (as can be seen from a walk on the boardwalk) This man SUPPORTED FIANNA FAIL and that my friends is a FACT. No champion could support such a party in my eyes as they were involved in none other than CORRUPTION
Tony Gregory did what he could to advance the cause of ridding this country of horrific bloodsports...this cause he cherished and we will ensure that the campaign to end hare coursing, fox hunting and other forms of animal baiting continues.
I devoted three chapters of my book Bad Hare Days to the story of Tony's heroic attempt to persuade Dail Eireann to outlaw hare coursing.
The Bill was shot down in flames after the three largest parties whipped their members into voting against it, despite the fact that many
TDs in those parties wished to support the abolition of hare coursing. Thus we witnessed the ludicrous and cringe-inducing spectacle of TDS who had frequently called for a ban on the practise sullenly voting FOR it...against their conscience.
Heroic failures are nothing new in Irish politics, but the failure of the Ban Hare Coursing Bill to get passed was not the end of the campaign...it raised public awareness of the cruelty involved, and now everyone in Ireland knows what bloodsports are all about, and what "sport hunting" really means.
What a pity that this good and honourable man did not live to see the evil practise of hare coursing banished from our island. I hope other politicians may yet follow his example and take a stand against bloodsports.
Aine Lawlor speaks to Tony Gregory, Independent TD for Dublin Central, about some of the highs and lows of his political career.
From 9 June 2008.
The Irish Council Against Blood Sports is deeply saddened at the loss of our great ally, Tony Gregory TD, who was our Vice President for many years. Tony died on Friday, January 2nd, at the age of 61. His untimely passing is an incalculable loss to our campaign.
The Irish Council Against Blood Sports is deeply saddened at the loss of our great ally, Tony Gregory TD, who was our Vice President for many years. Tony died on Friday, January 2nd, at the age of 61. His untimely passing is an incalculable loss to our campaign.
Tony's deep sense of social justice and compassion for the vulnerable extended to the prevention of cruelty to animals in all its forms. He was to the forefront of the campaign to ban blood sports for decades, and in 1993, he courageously brought a Private Member's Bill to outlaw hare coursing, which although defeated, brought huge attention nationally to a barbarous activity that many other politicians would rather turn a blind eye to.
Tony's invaluable support continued down the years and right up until recently, despite his illness, he raised the issue of blood sports in the Dail and other public fora. Be it hare coursing, fox hunting or the Ward Union deer hunt, Tony was always willing and available to give his help and support.
He will be sorely missed by all of us. Ar dheis De go raibh a anam dilis.
ICABS extends deepest sympathy to Tony's brother Noel, his partner Annette and to his extended family and friends.
Tony Gregory, TD
I first met Tony Gregory in the company of others in a pub in Sean McDermott Street in the late '70s. I had come from a weekly meeting of the Prisoners Rights Organisation. He was a city councillor then and I knew that he was working with anybody in the area - priests, social workers and trade unionists - to combat the drug trade. Mrs. Margaret Gaj of the PRO was absolutely opposed to even cannabis and spoke to Tony Gregory several times about the drug danger to the working class and sub proletariat. Individual members of the PRO like Joe and Gerry and Mrs. Gaj herself shared anti-drugs platforms at public meetings in central Dublin. Tony did his best at the time, but we know that big time international drug running interests got a stranglehold of the Irish 'market'. In some ways the late 1970s were relatively innocent times in poverty-stricken Dublin. Today the daily news headlines from several urban parts of the country remind us of Al Capone and the gang wars of Chicago during the roaring twenties.
He'll be criticised for the deal with Charles Haughey, I know, but he did something smart to save his constituents from being wiped away by bureaucracy in alliance with scheming capitalism. And let us not forget that he didn't abandon principles. When the coalition tried to put VAT on children's footwear in a 1982 budget Tony Gregory and Sean Dublin Bay Loftus voted against and forced an election.
Tony Gregory was an excellent backbench TD who regularly walked around his constituency streets meeting people and listening to their problems - and he never claimed a shoe leather allowance! He championed the casual traders in Henry Street and Moore Street, whose presence gives central Dublin such a human flavour. His interest in the Irish language was real and not for vote-getting purposes. Like Trevor Sargent of the Greens he was delighted to be invited to take part in TG4 and Radio na Gaeltachta programmes, for the pleasure of speaking the language as much as for propagating important ideas.
We need talented and committed individuals like Tony Gregory to cut through the crap of party political rhetoric and champion the people in the crammed terrace houses and grimy corpo flats.
In the folk memory Tony Gregory will take his place alongside other greats like Frank Sherwin and Noel Browne.
Is mor an bron ata orm tareis cloisteail go bhfuil Tony Gregory imithe ar shli na firinne. My sympathies to all those close to him.
He will be much missed; he did his best for people & animals despite a flawed political system. We need to carry on his good work.
He was in contrast to so may others in his profession a loyal true servant to ireland.
May i suggest we take down that horrid statue of Larken in o connell st (is it still there?) and replace it with a true socialist that actually DID something for his country.
ARAN are also saddened at the loss of Tony Gregory TD who died on January 2nd 2009.
Tony was a staunch supporter of the campaign to ban bloodsports and much more, Irish TD's such as Tony are hard to find in Dail Eireann and one we'll find hard to replace for quiet sometime.
We send our regrets to his family at this sad and lonely time.
Thank you Tony for been a true voice for animals over the years, ARAN will certainly miss you too.
Animal Rights Action Network (ARAN)
Yet another case of the good dieing young. All that waste and dead wood in the dail and one of the very few good ones is taken. We need to clone Tony's type and get them in there ASAP!!!!!!
I wish to express my condelences to Tony's family
funeral arrangements St Agathas church north William st, Tues and Wed
I wouldnt be a socialist or anything close but Tony was a man who really represented his people and made really important and tough stances, he wasnt afraid to go into government to achieve his aims and he stood up to the provos and the peple who were really running the drugs in Dublin, may he rest in peace.
Our group sends condolences at Tonys death. You were always helpfull and approachable when we needed help. You were direct and honest, you were rare.
Thank you for everything you did for non-human animals and especially in the campaign against blood sports..
Tony at our anti hunt protest
A rare breed indeed . Tony seems to have been involved in a lot of humane topics . Where did he find the time to have a family life or a pint ?
Every one i have spoken to since Saturday seems to have all good things to say . Is'nt that nice to hear . Whats in there now could not hold a candle to
Tony Gregory .R.I.P.
Compassion in World Farming - Ireland expresses great sadness at the death of Tony Gregory, TD. He was one of the most supportive politicians in Ireland with regard to animal welfare issues, including farm animal welfare. Over the years, he came to many of our events, and raised farm animal welfare concerns in the Dáil. His help and support, which we valued highly, will be badly missed.
"Simply the best"
"Better than all the rest"
its a tradition and it should be cherished. concentrate on the real issues like challenenging Israel instead of wasting time nit picking. i love horses, was involved in the sport for years and fully support keeping hunts going.credit to tony gregory for his legacy but like many of you he is from urban areas and wouldnt understand rural areas. the same people who want hunts banned go out and eat meat so its all a bit silly really
Tony Gregory may you rest in peace. Taken from us far too soon. Our Sympathy to your family and close friends. You will be missed.
He cared not just about human beings but all God's creatures.
There is quite a difference in eating meat where the animal has been humanely killed and hunting and coursing where the hare and the fox are literally torn limb from limb while still alive and to call such inhumane cruelty SPORT.
Anyone who participates in such should try themselves walking into a pen with a few wild rothwielers and having the flesh torn from the bone and see how sporting it feels.
Then if you survive when the wounds heal see if you would like to take part in hunting again. If you have any humanity left in you I doubt it.
I understand were you are coming from but if you take the inner city constituency full of problems with no solutions. The young people are told NO BALL PLAYING at the flat complexes, then have these anti-hunt groups like yours Clara that tell us you want to interfer with our sport. Your answer is always NO, NO NO. No to everything. Then we wonder why people have nothing to do. We sometimes have to protect traditions. My point is that we can't always say No. Foxes are a nuisance to farmers anyway!
I wasn't aware of Tony Gregory's interest in the anti-bloodsports issue, and while I would probably find coursing distasteful I don't see the harm in hunting foxes which farmers regard as vermin that attack poultry.
The Gregory Deal with Haughey after a general election produced a hung Dail included commitments on a lot of things. The signing of the deal was witnessed by no better man than Michael Mullen, then leader of the ITGWU (Larkin's union, now called Siptu). As Haughey's government collapsed six months later and a FG-Lab coalition was cobbled together after another election there wasn't enough time for Haughey to implement many of the agreed items. It would be interesting if some posters with better memories than myself would supply details of good things done for the north inner city while Haughey clung to power.
I know for certain that the Curragh military detention barracks was closed to civilian prisoners before Haughey's party was forced to the opposition benches. This military barracks had been a thorn in the prison system for several years since a paramilitary prisoner riot in Mountjoy around 1972. The culprits were shuttled off to the Curragh Camp. After they served out their sentences and were released certain "troublesome" prisoners with no paramilitary connections and some sex offenders were sent to the Curragh to fill up the vacant cells. They were civilians in military custody - a disgraceful anomaly in western Europe at the time. Tony Gregory's deal brought all such prisoners back into the civilian prison system. That was one of his many social achievements. Some years later a new civilian prison staffed by civilian screws was built on the site of the military barracks. No soldiers are involved in its running.
It would be interesting to know whether the so-called Gregory Deal had any lasting effects locally, since it should be easy to compare areas of the North Inner City with their counterparts south of the Liffey to see whether levels of deprivation were markedly different.
The deal certainly had an effect nationally in that it gave a generation the impression that local politicians' first duty was simply to represent the constituency, helping with funding for local employment projects etc, rather than actually trying to change the system which caused the problems.
Tony Gregory was once a revolutionary socialist, but when I heard him on the TV in the 1990's lauding the Celtic Tiger for providing low paid jobs for his constituents on the basis that such service sector jobs were better than nothing, I knew I would not be voting for him again.
Deferring local changes in unemployment levels and schooling and health provision "until the revolution comes" (presumably engineered skilfully and conspiratorily by some well organised vanguard revolutionary party) can be one approach to social change. I think Lenin or somebody wrote that Worse is Better on this topic i.e. the worse the social conditions the more the oppressed are likely to support revolutionary movements.
Extreme social conditions can also lead to fascism e.g. 1923 inflationary Germany led to Hitler and the Nazi Party; a bankrupt Italy led to Mussolini and the blackshirts; many poverty-stricken peasants and urban workers in 1930s Spain threw in their lot with the falangist forces, despite the presence of strong anarcho-socialist movements in both city and countryside.
Since the age of 16 Gregory had been involved in left-republican party activism. He learned the nitty gritty of local campaigning from this experience, and when he rejected the car bombing campaign in Northern Ireland being waged by the provos and became disenchanted with the resort to anti-nationalism by the stickies in the early seventies, he decided to concentrate on local community activism of a nonparty nature.
Ann Lawlor's RTE interview, filmed about seven months before Gregory's death, contains details of permanent improvements made in inner city north as a result of the Gregory Deal, according to Gregory himself. This interview can serve as his political testament. His attitude to political violence is candidly stated. His comments about the contrasting personalities of Haughey and FitzGerald are very interesting - Haughey was a self-serving but compassionate pragmatist, while FitzGerald dwelt in a remote world of impersonal financial statistics that made him oblivious to daily living conditions of the urban underclass.
But watch the 49-minute interview for yourself here http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0102/gregoryt_gallery.html
Tony Gregory was a hardworking, humane community activist, a member of a team of likeminded community activists. He and they lived in a real world of grinding social disadvantage. He and they achieved big infrastructural improvements in an area that had been neglected since the foundation of the state. His memory will live in the hearts of his constituents for a long time. His example will inspire future generations of social activists. I mourn his passing with a sadness I have not experienced since I first heard about the passing of Noel Browne so many years ago.
Tony did his best for the marginalised and the forgotten in the worst of times and in the best of times, and then some.
May we learn in his memory and may he rest in peace.
The general election, May 2007. (c)
People
Solidarity and strength
Once again the people of the North Inner City came out in their thousands to show their respect to Tony Gregory as did people from across Ireland
I want to say it was a honour to have been present at the funeral of Tony Gregory with the people of the North inner city. along with Tony's brother Noel, his partner Annette with his many friends
Fr. Peter Mc Verrys' comments went straight into rightwing politicians attendance at the funeral and their political agenda. Noel also along with councillor Maureen o Sullivan. didn't pull any punches.
Thanks for that election 2007 photo of Tony Gregory and his supporters, Michael Gallagher. I've put it up as a background decoration on my desktop. Yes indeed, we can best remember Tony's fine example of dedication to his people by carrying on with our own projects aimed at promoting sanity and social justice in this troubled world.
tony is gone.....
who will replace him?
I personally want the same ideals...
bring his ideas back!
cat
to Tony's partner and family. He supported me in the '80's when I was fighting the North Western Health Board in a very unjust legal battle, and also was one of the very few elected representatives to stand squarely behind those of us on trial
for actions at Shannon. Thank you Tony for all you have done particularly your courageous advocacy for the marginalised.
Tony has left us, he will be sadly missed by so many both in his own city and beyond.
As Robert Burns wrote some of the most uplifting verses in literature to the toils and struggles of humanity and of his deep love of animals, so Tony will be remembered with pride for those two causes which he also championed.
May the earth rest gently over his bosom.
John Kelly
Drimnagh Dublin 12
Lulu said it best "he did his best for people & animals despite a flawed political system. We need to carry on his good work."
That is his legacy. He is one of 2 Irish politicians I respected. RIP Tony
Yeah, animal hunting is an issue in Ireland but please also think about horrific bloodshed in GAZA. Those who killed either in GAZA or ISRAEL were human beings. Please also raise your voice against CARNAGE IN GAZA as it is the real issue.
Anyway, the untimely demise of an activist working for the welfare of wild animals is a sad news.
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