INDEPENDENT TD Tony Gregory spoke of his regret at not marrying and having children in his final media interview before his death earlier this month.
“It’s one of my big regrets, but I wouldn’t blame that on politics. I think that’s the result of one’s life experience,” he said.
“Politics was a contributory factor, in that you’re facing constant elections and are concentrating on other things, but it wouldn’t be true to say that because of politics I isolated myself from any sort of family life. Things just didn’t work out.”
Pressed further, he said: “There was a certain amount of unrequited love going way back, but I got over that a long time ago. That was in my early 20s. I met my long-lost love through the UCD Republican Club.
“She was a student in UCD too. She was from the southside. But I won’t go into that with you! You can’t use that as the reason – it just didn’t work out. It’s as simple as that.”
In an interview with Hot Press magazine, published yesterday, Mr Gregory said it was probably true to say that he had an excess of religion in the first 20 years of his life.
He spoke of his late mother’s intense devotion to the Blessed Virgin and all the traditions of the Catholic faith. He went to daily Mass, served as an altar boy and was a member of the Legion of Mary.
“I wouldn’t be anti-religious in any way. I respect people’s beliefs and so on. I don’t particularly share those beliefs now. But at the same time, I’m not the type of person who believes that I have all the answers.”
Asked if he believed in an afterlife, Mr Gregory said he had believed in it fervently as a child.
“Reluctantly, I can’t see any logic or sense in it now. But when I’m really in desperation – like a lot of other people – about something or other, I pray to my mother.
“Despite what I just said to you, I believe her spirit is still somewhere out there, as I know that she totally loved me.
“I have some sort of feeling that the intense love for your children doesn’t die – it doesn’t go away. It’s somewhere out there and, in some sense, is watching over me.
“I have that now. That may be a hangover from what I would call excessive religion in childhood. It may also just be an emotional response to my own love for my mother. I believe that when you love somebody so much that person never dies.”
Mr Gregory claimed he was the victim of a dirty tricks campaign by Bertie Ahern’s organisation in the early 1980s. The former taoiseach and himself shared the same Dublin Central constituency.
Mr Gregory said he had been telephoned “at 4am with people reading prayers over the thing as if I was about to die or something.
“There were other calls, saying ‘Haughey’s bought you a house in Clontarf’ and this sort of thing. This was occurring at 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning and I eventually had to take my number out of the phone book.”
Mr Gregory claimed that on the morning of the 1981 election, posters appeared, saying: “Vote for the H Block’s Candidate! Vote Gregory Number One.”
He said he had always believed that the only people with the manpower to do it “were Ahern and his team”. It was in Mr Ahern’s interest to undermine him, he said.
Mr Gregory said he had put the word around that he would have a hatchet in the car at the next election.
“I did have a hatchet, but I had the hatchet for other reasons. There were feuds going on that I was afraid people might mix me up with, because of my background in the Officials [Sinn Féin] and the IRSP and that.
“But in any case, Ahern took all of that as the cut and thrust of politics. At the time, his biggest problem was Fianna Fáil votes.”
