RTÉ are running a poll to find the greatest Irish person ever. They have 40 people listed, and I am very surprised that some people have made it onto the list: Stephen Gately, Ronan Keating, Louis Walsh, Adi Roche, Joe Dolan, Colin Farrell, and Liam Neeson. Can these people really be counted as "great"? Try this quote about greatness from Buck Rodgers (American Baseball Player):
There are countless ways of attaining greatness, but any road to reaching one's maximum potential must be built on a bedrock of respect for the individual, a commitment to excellence, and a rejection of mediocrity.
There are some truly great Irish people listed - my shortlist from the RTÉ list is Pearse, Collins, Parnell, Dev, and Oscar Wilde. Of course these people all have one thing (apart from being Irish) in common - they are all dead! I'm a bit like the National Trust in the UK who will not put one of those "So-and-so lived here in 1948" plaques on the wall of a house the Trust owns until the person is dead (there's one on John Lennon's house in Liverpool, but not on on Paul McCartney's). The living can still mess things up and remove themselves from the list! Here's my reasons why I selected above (I don't expect people to agree with me on any of this):





There are of course lots of great Irish people not listed: St Patrick, Brian Boru, Patrick Sarsfield, Robert Emmet, Henry Grattan, William Rowan Hamilton, Ernest Walton, Brian Friel, Brendan Behan, George Best, T.K Whitaker, to name a few. Also, there are only three women on the RTÉ list (Sonia O'Sullivan, Adi Roche, and Mary Robinson) - what about Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Brenda Fricker, Maureen Potter, Constance Markievicz, Edna O'Brien, Maria Edgeworth, and Margaret Burke-Sheridan?
And finally...my vote on the RTÉ poll went to Patrick Pearse - patriot, writer, teacher, and revolutionary.
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