From Bloody Mary and Doctor Jim to courtroom battles and street riots
On Monday, a planned cabinet meeting to discuss the budget was postponed so that ministers could attend the removal of Léana Martin, the youngest daughter of Foreign Affairs Minister Micheál Martin. The seven-year-old had taken ill with a heart condition and died in Great Ormond Street Hospital in London the previous Friday. Now, on a cold, wet winter’s night in Cork, the Taoiseach, his wife, and numerous cabinet members were among those who crowded into Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Ballintemple to offer the devastated Martin family what support they could.
The sympathisers included Mary Harney and her husband, Brian Geoghehan. Earlier in the day, the Health Minister had unwittingly made the headlines after being sprayed with red paint by a protester in Dublin.
