Following the death of former Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave, Marian Finucane was joined by two people with some of the best political recalls in the country, broadcaster and columnist Olivia O'Leary and broadcaster and historian John Bowman.

Olivia explained that Liam Cosgrave wasn't very fond of interviews. She says that she had tried 'umpteen times' to interview him but he always declined. Liam Cosgrave wasn't comfortable with the interviewing process and journalists eventually realised to get him to speak at all, they should start a conversation about his father, W.T. Cosgrave who was also Taoiseach years previously.

After the disastrous election in 1977, Olivia told Marian that he was quite grim after watching the six o'clock and saw his party failing with his Ministers falling down like nine pins. She emphasises that there wasn't a peep out of him during the count.  Alas, when the sports news came on afterwards, they showed a clip of a horse race that had been on the same day as the count for the election and he turned to Olivia and said; "That was a great race".

"There was not a peep out of him and then the sports news came on, a big race that day for England and he was absolutely riveted with this and he turned around he said, "that was a great race".

John Bowman explained to Marian that he listened back to many of Liam Cosgrave's interviews in the archives and came to the conclusion that he was not a modern politician. He conveyed that Cosgrave was two eras behind of his time and this came to the fore when the contraceptive bill was being debated in Ireland during the time of his leadership. John pointed out that the tide was rapidly moving in the opposite direction and Cosgrave made every effort to stop it.

"He behaved that way too with the contraceptive vote being an example, where the tide was moving rapidly in the other direction."

John evoked that Cosgrave was in denial to the changes that were happening in Ireland in regard to reproductive rights. He said between 1970 and 1979, a period of time in which Cosgrave was in office, the question of contraception had changed from "Is it a sin to surely it's a civil right?"

"The point of Cosgrave being out of date, the 1970's on contraception it was the busiest question … In that period of time between 1970 and 1979, the question changed from Contraception is it a sin? Is it a crime? Surely it's a civil right?"

Olivia commented that if he had stayed in office as Taoiseach any longer he wouldn't have survived because of his old-fashioned views. She remarks that he couldn't subsist in a world where people were pushing for divorce or where the talk of abortion was on the rise. It was beyond his time.

"He couldn't have survived in a world for instance where people were pushing for a divorce, people were beginning to talk about the whole abortion issue. It was beyond his time. He just got in on time for his time."

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