McGrady recalls ‘formidable lady’

McGrady recalls ‘formidable lady’

10 April 2013

THE death of former British Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher on Monday has prompted local politicians and those from across the globe to give their reaction to her 11-year premiership.

She has been described by former South Down MP Eddie McGrady, who came into contact with her during his time at Westminster, as a “formidable lady.”

Mr. McGrady, who wrested the South Down seat from the sitting Ulster Unionist MP, Enoch Powell, in 1987, was at Westminster for several years of what has become known as the Thatcher era. Speaking just hours after her death, Mr. McGrady described the former Prime Minister as a “very formidable lady.”

He said the Thatcher era indicated the enormity of Baroness Thatcher’s administration and premiership, but Mr. McGrady said the former Prime Minister did not always understand the Irish question or the nuances that pertained in Northern Ireland.

“Yet paradoxically she was the one who laid the foundations of the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985 which was the forerunner to the Good Friday Agreement and all the good that has flowed from it,” Mr. McGrad remarked.

The former South Down MP said Baroness Thatcher’s “extreme conservatism” was detrimental to sections of the British nation with the outfall of her capitalism and gross privatisation impacting particularly on the less well off.

Mr. McGrady continued: “Internationally, Baroness Thatcher was probably without equal as evidenced by her negotiations with the European Union, her relationships with the United States and her reaction to the Falklands invasion.”

Mr. McGrady said Baroness Thatcher’s work with former Irish premier Garret Fitzgerald and subsequent Taoisigh has provided the peaceful scenario that exists now in Northern Ireland.

He added: “Her time in politics will always be known as the Thatcher era.”