Politics

Mary Banotti ‘worked fiercely for real change for Irish women’, funeral hears

Former Fine Gael MEP ‘adored politics and the European stage was her Broadway’, says daughter

The remains of former Fine Gael TD and MEP, Mary Banotti, in hearse outside the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour in Foxfock, Dublin on Thursday. Photograph: Colin Keegan/Collins Dublin

Patsy McGarry
Thu May 16 2024 - 15:04

Former Fine Gael politician Mary Banotti was “a life force” and “worked fiercely” to secure change for Irish women, her daughter Tania told her funeral Mass in Dublin on Thursday.

The eldest of six children, Mary “grew up fast” when her father Jim O’Mahony died at a young age, Tania said. At 19, she left “her boring bank clerk job to train as a nurse in London” before heading to New York where she lived in Greenwich Village, acted in an off-Broadway play and joined the civil rights movement.

Later, she moved to Kenya to work as a volunteer nurse where “she met my father, Giovanni, an Italian-Eritrean doctor”. The couple moved to Rome but then separated and “in 1970 she began again in an Ireland that didn’t welcome separated working mothers”.

[ Letter: Remembering Mary Banotti ]

Mary Banotti (84), who died at St Vincent’s hospital last Monday, was MEP for Dublin from 1984 to 2004 and a Fine Gael candidate in the 1997 presidential election.

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Speaking at her funeral in the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, Foxrock, Tania recalled how on her mother’s return to Ireland in 1970, she “worked fiercely for real change for Irish women”.

With “first generation feminists like Nuala (Fennell), Gemma (Hussey), Monica (McWilliams) and Catherine (McGuinness)” and many others, she helped establish Women’s Aid and campaigned for the Family Home Protection Act. What has changed in Ireland since was “thanks to my mother and these fierce women,” she said.

Taoiseach Simon Harris signs the book of condolence at the funeral on Thursday morning. Photograph: Colin Keegan/Collins Dublin

As an MEP, Mary Banotti “adored politics and the European stage was her Broadway”, Tania said. Her most meaningful work then was as the first EU mediator for parentally abducted children.

“I myself was abducted as a baby, leaving my mother distraught. She translated that trauma into action and was completely dedicated to the issue,” she said.

Mary’s biggest campaign was the 1997 presidential election, Tania said, “and while she didn’t win, she was delighted to be part of an election where the main candidates were all women”.

She liked to entertain. “It was always informal except one dinner for the [unnamed] British ambassador. She ambitiously roasted goose, which swam in so much fat that it slid off the kitchen counter and under the dining table. When he left his post the ambassador wrote, saying it was the best party of his life here.”

Over recent months, Tania said, she and her mother “talked a lot about what’s happening in Gaza”. As an MEP, Mary Banotti had been “an outspoken advocate for Palestine”.

Tania recalled how her mother “was enormously loving and proud of me, much to the amusement of her friends and mine. Every birthday she would tell me I was her capolavoro, her masterwork”.

“One of Mary’s favourite sayings was sursum corda, lift up your hearts. I will try to lift up my broken heart”, and begin “a new and different part of my life, without her but with her spirit,” she said.

During Prayers of the Faithful, family friend Olga Harrington prayed “for those caught up in war and famine, particularly for the children who will not get to live out their lives. Mary’s work for children was an inspiration to all of us and we pray that many others will follow her example and work for peace, justice and equality.”

Banotti's remains are carried from the church. Photograph: Colin Keegan/Collins Dublin

Mass celebrant was Fr Pat O’Donoghue assisted by Canon Alison Shine, goddaughter to Mary Banotti. Chief mourners were Tania and Mary Banotti’s siblings Michael O’Mahony, Nora Owen, Catherine O’Mahony and Joan O’Mahony.

President Michael D Higgins was represented by his aide-de-comp Col Stephen Howard.

Among the attendance was Taoiseach Simon Harris, TDs Richard Bruton and Chris Andrews, Senator Barry Ward, MEP Frances Fitzgerald, journalists Vincent Browne, Stephen Collins, Olivia O’Leary and former director of the Abbey Theatre Christopher Fitzsimons.

A cremation service took place afterwards at Mount Jerome in Harold’s Cross, Dublin.

Patsy McGarry

Patsy McGarry

Patsy McGarry is a contributor to The Irish Times

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