NOËL BROWNE – A TERRIBLE TERRIBLE PERSON ALTOGETHER

Despite being instrumental in the eradication of TB and attempting to introduce state funded healthcare for women and children, former minister for health, Noël Browne, is thought by many to have been a terrible, terrible person altogether. 

Hard to work with, an upsetter, an upstart, disrespectful to the considerations of the Archbishop, not a joiner inner, not the kind of fella you'd want to go caravanning with - in any given discussion about the man, these are typical of the traits attributed to Browne.

Even a portion of Browne's wiki entry is dedicated to his unlikeability, with Fergus Finlay describing him as a 'bad tempered and curmudgeonly old man' and Maurice Manning's descriptions of him as 'difficult' and 'self-centred'.

What a terrible, terrible person altogether Noël Browne must have been. I bet he didn't even sit with the lads at lunch or laugh easily at their jokes (...which, y'know, I'm sure were excellent). Ultimately, we can only conclude that Browne must have been an oddball. Unlike the rest of the nation during his times, he must have been a bit weird.

However, the wiki entry does attempt to defend Browne a little from his accusers, generously pointing out that much of the man's unpleasantness could have been due to his partial deafness. I prefer to think that Browne's grouchy aloofness was down to the fact that he considered most of his peers to be a genuflecting shower of cunts. What a terrible, terrible person altogether Noël Browne must have been, to have had such thoughts, to think so little of such great men, to think them nothing more than a genuflecting shower of cunts.

(Addendum: In fairness, Noël Browne did come sixth in RTE's Ireland's Greatest poll of 2010, narrowly beating Stephen Gately into seventh position but being topped by Bono at fifth. It seems some of you silly-billies refuse to forget the achievements of this bad mixer/unsociable monster.)