T.J. MAHER: Thomas Joseph (T.J.) Maher, who died on April 19th aged 79, was a distinguished farmers' leader and independent member of the European Parliament. One of the most charismatic farmers' leaders ever, he was at all times motivated by the philosophy to "do the job totally or not at all". Even when a member of the European Parliament, where he was a prominent member of the Liberal and Democratic Group, he used to emphasise that he was not a politician but a public representative.
The fifth of seven children born to Thomas and Julianne Maher, he was born at Castlemoyle, Boherlahan, Cashel, Co Tipperary, on April 29th, 1922, and grew up on his father's modest 45-acre farm. Educated at Ardmayle National School, Christian Brothers School, Cashel and the local vocational school, he worked on the family farm from a young age and took charge in his mid-20s when his father retired due to ill-health. He gradually extended the farm to its present 120 acres where he engaged in a mixed enterprise, including dairying, cattle and some grain.
On January 8th, 1958, he married Elizabeth (Betty) Kennedy from nearby Bansha.
As a young farmer, he played an active role in Macra Na Feirme and later joined the National Farmers' Association (NFA). Taking an immediate active role, he participated in the long farmers' march to Dublin in the winter of 1966 and later was one of nine farmers who staged a sit-down protest outside the office of the Department of Agriculture for 20 days.
At the time, he said he believed in militancy only as a means to an end, vehemently arguing for the right of small and medium-sized farmers to a decent future.
In August 1967, he was elected the third president of the NFA in succession to fellow Tipperary man Rickard Deasy. He was actively involved in negotiations prior to Ireland's entry into the EEC in 1973. In November 1967, for example, he travelled to Rome for the European Congress of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers.
He consistently pleaded the case for smaller farmers with successive governments and in 1968 strongly urged young Irish university graduates to stay in Ireland and to "make a fight for Irish farming".
In 1970, he was re-elected president of the NFA and was subsequently appointed president of a new council which brought together the Beet and Vegetable Growers' Association, the Leinster Milk Producers' Association, the Irish Commercial Horticultural Association and the National Farmers' Association.
In 1971, he became the first president of the newly-formed Irish Farmers' Association where he again served with distinction.
A most articulate speaker, he strongly defended Ireland's entry into the EEC and denied suggestions that there would be an influx of foreigners who would buy up all available Irish land.
During this period, he was appointed a director of Bord Bainne, the Irish Sugar Company and later B & I - a move that prompted a call for his resignation by IFA vice-president William Diamond, who claimed he was being used for commercial and political purposes. However, T.J. Maher received a full vote of confidence in his leadership and Diamond subsequently resigned.
During the early 1970s, he fought vigorously against the Government's tax proposal for farmers and demanded action on a range of issues including the marketing of young cattle.
In November 1976, he ended his term of office as IFA president but remained active in farming politics. He was elected president of the Irish Co-operative Organisation Society (ICOS), the umbrella body for the country's co-ops in 1977 where he went on to serve for six years.
By this time, T.J. Maher's peregrinations beyond the strictly farm-gate area of Irish life caused him to run as an independent candidate for the European Parliament in the Munster constituency in 1979 where he topped the poll with 86,000 votes.
During that year, he remarked that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were becoming irrelevant in a modern society and that people generally were becoming more perceptive about politics.
In the European Parliament, he spoke on a wide variety of topics and held strong views on the treatment of criminals in detention centres, arguing that serious consideration should be given to the establishment of work camps on uninhabited islands off the west coast of Ireland. He took a moderate view in relation to proposals to amend the law on contraception, but strongly opposed the legalising of abortion.
In 1982, he initiated controversy over remarks about diplomatic staff in Irish embassies abroad which, he urged, should be reduced.
He argued that the traditional approach of having embassies in a large number of countries required urgent review and that there should be much greater emphasis on trade delegations and marketing experts. Embassies, he said, would give much better value if their diplomatic staffs were considerably reduced and replaced by specialists in the marketing of Irish food, industrial goods and tourism.
A strong supporter of decentralisation, he felt that over-emphasis on the development of Dublin through the inability or unwillingness of successive governments to take action, would cost the country dearly in social and economic terms.
In 1984, he was sued by former High Court Taxing Master and Minister Paddy Lindsay for questioning if the law could be properly dispensed from a position of ignorance following the Taxing Master's comments concerning farmers having a tractor "idling away outside the nearest pub". Lindsay won in the High Court but lost out following an appeal by T.J. Maher to the Supreme Court.
T.J. Maher held strong nationalist views and in 1991 argued that Northern Ireland should be made a "protectorate of the EU". He campaigned for Amnesty International and in 1991 visited a death row prisoner, Joseph Garratano, as part of Amnesty's appeal against the death penalty in Virginia.
As a member of the European Parliament, he pleaded many times for a better system of channelling food to Third World countries and he urged fellow members to campaign for a Third World dimension to the Common Agricultural Policy, which, he said, would make it more humanitarian.
He was a founder member and chairman of Bóthar, the Third World development organisation, which sends animals overseas to poor families.
He was a long-serving member of the European Parliament's Agricultural and Rural Development Committee, the Regional Committee and the Petitions Committee. He was also appointed a Quaestor of the parliament.
In September 1984, commenting on the poor shape of the Irish economy, he said the major political parties had a moral duty to come together to produce an agreed five-year plan for the country and he urged them to reach a consensus on the outstanding problems of the South as had been done in the Forum report on the North.
He opposed giving local authorities responsibility for water control, arguing that this was tantamount to "appointing a poacher to a game-keeper's post". Local authorities, he said, were among the major polluting offenders and he stressed Ireland's pollution-free status was vital to both the food and tourism industries. He retired from the European Parliament in 1994.
In February 1997, T.J. Maher was conferred with an honorary doctorate in economics by the University of Limerick and last year he was given a Hall of Fame award by the Tipperary Association.
T.J. Maher enjoyed farming, particularly maintaining and repairing all things mechanical. He was a sporting enthusiast and enjoyed reading political and military history. He was the younger brother of the late Dr James (Jamesie) Maher, a consultant surgeon at St Vincent's Hospital and honorary consultant surgeon to the IRFU who died in October 1975.
He is survived by his wife Betty, sons Thomas and Denis, daughter Julianne and brother Father Michael Maher CSSp.
Thomas Joseph (T.J.) Maher: born 1922; died, April 2002