Local champion - Jackie Healy-Rae

As every politician worth his salt knows — all politics is local.

By that yardstick, the former South Kerry TD Jackie Healy-Rae, whose remains will be buried today, was keenly aware that as far as he was concerned there was no apology for being the quintessential public representative for people in the grassroots of rural Ireland. As he once put it during an election campaign, in his shrewd and colourful way, the people who would vote for him were the “kind of people who ate their dinner in the middle of the day”.

At a time when the gulf between urban and rural Ireland is growing ever wider, he championed every local cause in his constituency and beyond. That he was indeed a skilled communicator was seen when his general election victory speech in May 2007 in Kenmare attracted nearly 40,000 views on YouTube.