Mary O Rourke has passed away.

You are trying to speak for the entire working class and as a member of that class I am saying you can fuk off in that regard.

Mary O'Rourke wasn't anything near working class anyway so I don't know how it's any defense of what she said.

I’m fine. You’re the one defending the use of a racial slur while simultaneously refusing to type the slur yourself.

If there’s nothing wrong with it as you claim why do you refer to it as “that phrase” as opposed to just saying it outright? Rather than query my wellbeing answer the question.

Raichu you have a very active imagination and there's nothing at all wrong with that.

I understand you're under tremendous stress from reading your recent posts and indeed the threads you have started but please don't be under the illusion that because I have shown you some empathy that you are in a position to tell me what to do.

You shouldn't mistake kindness for weakness.

Don't be afraid raichu, conquer your fear

Just do it.

When the roots are deep there is no reason to fear the wind.

There was never any ignorance to where it came from, the knowledge of where it came from is WHY it was used. There’s no outrage, it’s just that even by 2006 standards, it was a monumentally stupid thing for a national politician to have said. No outrage, just monumentally stupid, which is why it’s an example of something she would be remembered for, for the wrong reasons.

It’s no different than any national political figure being remembered for their tone-deaf gaffes, and there are many examples of their detachment from reality that are just as awkward, bemusing or in that particular circumstance - outright hilarious for the way she was completely oblivious to it in spite of it drawing gasps from an unexpecting audience 😂

Yes they do, but that’s not the case with that particular phrase which is used to convey the idea that people worked as hard as black slaves were made to work. What’s improbable is the idea that anyone using it isn’t using it because they’re aware of its context and the idea they’re attempting to convey to other people who would also understand its meaning.

And yes, it is down to the individual, whatever about their disposition, in just the same way as the OP remembers her for the TE shares scandal where ordinary people who were never stock market speculators lost their life savings in some cases (through sheer greed and stupidity it has to be said, hoping to make a quick profit), or the tribunals in which she threw all and sundry under the bus (some people have suggested it was because of the way her brother was treated after his gaffe!), or being remembered for all the positive aspects of her tenure as a national political figure such as the amount of good she did for the people in her constituency, or how she inspired more women to get into public office and politics, or her being remembered as the Mammy of the Dáil, or as the reporter put it - her characteristically colourful style (a nice way of identifying that she was completely detached from reality).

They use the phrase because they know what it means, and they know the people who they are using it with, know too what it means. Mary could have observed that her team worked hard, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as colourful, colloquial or meaningful as observing that her team worked like blacks 😂

She was well ahead of her time in those remarks. Worked like Blacks should be seen in today's Ireland as a compliment to all the hard-working Blacks who are literally 'working like Blacks' to improve Ireland's economy in the face of the 'racist far-right' commentators who view the Black community as welfare cheats and often worse.

Feckit if she made a total mess of Telecom Eireann, she was more focussed on the future migration problem about to unfold.