Another great defender of life and family has, sadly, died – Requiescat in Pace. Alice Glenn was a politician – she was a member of the Fine Gael Party (now in power with the Labour Party, but no longer with the policies and principles that it had when Alice originally joined it).
Alice Glenn’s politics were based on family, faith and fatherland. When she eventually parted company with the Fine Gael Party she described it as ‘a once great party, now going down the road to depravity and defiance of God’s law’. One obituary writer states that: ‘Much to the annoyance of the Fine Gael leadership, she strongly supported the anti-abortion amendment to the Constitution [of Ireland] in 1983. Declaring abortion to be, “the most important issue to come before the nation since the foundation of the State”, she expressed her complete confidence in the electorate to make the right choice.’ The electorate did make the right choice, when the people of Ireland voted to insert a specifically pro-life clause into the Constitution.Later on, when the government of the day tried to change the Constitution to introduce divorce into Ireland, Alice famously said that women who voted for divorce would be like turkeys voting for Christmas. (The first divorce referendum, in 1986, was defeated, but the second attempt on the part of the government to legalise divorce, in 1995, was unfortunately successful.)
Alice Glenn spent two terms as chairwoman of the Dublin City Council Housing Committee, and she also acted as deputy Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1987/88. In the 1980s, too, she served during two terms as a member of the Dáil (lower house of the parliament).
At her funeral her parish priest remembered Alice as ‘a formidable woman of principle’. Ní bheidh a leithéid ann arís (we will not see her like again).
