A principled echo heard!

A recent excellent article, The TK Whitaker archives: a career of answering back, by Prodessor Diarmuid Ferriter, Professor of Modern Irish History at UCD, examined the record of the late T.K. Whitaker in his archive. The Papers of T.K. Whitaker are a deposited collection in the archive of University College Dublin.

The late Dr T.K. Whitaker

It is an very interesting appraisal of the contribution of this gentle and conscientious servant of the nation (in the full meaning of the word). This writer found it not fully objective but nevertheless it made riveting reading. (Defining the word "objective" is perhaps itself subjective and we all have our own way of looking at things.

One of the sentences in his piece caused me to pause and reflect. The writer was talking about Dr Whitaker's sojourn as Governor of the Central Bank. He served for one term only. "He would not serve a second term as governor, as it could have been regarded as 'a condonation of policies I considered to be wrong!'"

It is so rare to hear of people resigning or not taking a post on principle and it reminded me of a more recent case of a public servant resigning "on principle to draw attention to these matters or to continue in my role and, consequently, to participate in a pretence. "  These are the (translated) words of the first Language Ombudsman (Comisinéir Teanga) of Ireland, Seán Ó Cuirreáin, addressing an Oireachtas Committee on 23rd January 2014.

How lucky are we as a nation to have possessed such principled public servants.

May we continue to have such brave servants.