Well for some reason I’m the first result in Google for “Mary O Rourke comment” so I better put something here for the two people that visited from Google.
Suzy has covered it here as has Fiona.
Update: Richard Develan gives good coverage and I actually thought it a non-issue until his coverage of the media handling of it by Fianna Fáil and the lack of backbone by the media to call her out on it:
Orla then reads out another text from a listener that makes comparisons to the way Paddies and Micks were treated in the UK and elsewhere. The listener says that she’s black and she’s offended by O’Rourke’s remarks.
Asked for her response, O’Rourke says: “Good for her. She’s got clearly her asylum…or her papers. I wish all asylum seekers could work here.”
Oh my god. In fact this needs more punctuation: Oh. My. God.
Oh, Mary, where would the Midlander stereotypes of BIFFOs and boggers be without you?
Unlike George W, who Anne Richards described as being born with a “silver foot in his mouth, Mary O’Rourke was born with a silver lump of turf in hers.
I is a non-issue. I think it’s hillarious that the previous poster decided to insult Mary with an actually offensive comment. How can she possibly think that Mary O’Rourke’s naive comment is unacceptable and yet think labeling people boggers & BIFFO‘s is acceptable.
I’ve been following this “controversy” over the last 24 hours and it makes me giggle. Mary O’Rourke may have made a faux pas, but that doesn’t make her into something she isn’t
What I meant was that as a fellow bogger, Mary knows how to keep us all on side. Not so much in her original comments, but in her handling of all offensive/whacky comments.
Mary has a tendency to run off the mouth – but somehow managed for years to keep the meeja irritated and the locals voting for her. Until Donie Cassidy and coiffure came along and stole her thunder.
This particular comment, which I believe to be naive, harmless and something I have heard from so many people all my life, is one that will continue to keep her in the spotlight, but as the fellow bogger that we all can trust to be chatty self, not a vilified racist.
Boggers and BIFFOs are a stereotype, one which Mary feeds on a regular basis, something she has never had a problem with.