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18th Mar 2021

Michael Healy Rae says calls to change The Kerryman to The Kerryperson are “absolute balderdash”

Stephen Porzio

Michael Healy-Rae climate change

The Kerry TD said politicians had “better things” to worry about.

Politician Michael Healy Rae has criticised calls to change the name of the Kerry newspaper The Kerryman to The Kerryperson.

In an op-ed for the Irish Mirror, Minister of State for Special Education and Inclusion Josepha Madigan suggested that the women of Kerry would appreciate a change to the county newspaper’s masculinised title.

She said this as part of a call for the end of gendered titles and language.

Despite praising Madigan as a “very dedicated” and “very sincere” politician, Kerry TD Michael Healy Rae told Newstalk Breakfast her suggestion was “political correctness gone mad”.

He told the programme: “Some people go on with this political correctness in the hope of it being seen as popular amongst people, in particular women, because they might be offended.

“The CEO of The Kerryman newspaper is a lady who has come out herself publicly and said as a woman and as the CEO, as the boss of The Kerryman newspaper, she has absolutely no problem with it being called The Kerryman.”

The TD added that in the 30 years he has been selling The Kerryman in his shop, not one woman has commented negatively on the paper’s name to him.

He stated derisively: “I think the next thing we’ll have to change will be… the ‘manhole’ in the ground by the local authority will have to be called a ‘personhole’.”

Healy Rae said he believes that at the current time Government ministers have “better things to be worrying” about, referring to Madigan’s comments as “absolute balderdash of the worst type”.

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