The Long And the Short Of It
The Mayor of Limerick, Jim Long, has been embroiled in a number of controversies recently. So who is he? What does he represent? And is he really a racist, as his accusers claim?
Olaf Tyaransen, 18 Apr 2012
Councillor Jim Long, the 815th Mayor of Limerick, has never read Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, though he has seen the movie version. “I thought it was quite good,” the 60-year-old local politician tells me in his soft Limerick accent. “But there was too much rain in it. We don’t get rain like that here. I mean, Jesus, if someone in America looked at that, they’d say there’s rain in Limerick all the time.”
He gestures out the window of his spacious City Hall office at the sun shining down on the sparkling Shannon. “I have a statement about Limerick which is very positive because I’m a positive Mayor for Limerick, and my statement is that the sun shines over Limerick 365 days a year. We have one problem. The clouds! But we certainly don’t have rain like it was portrayed in Angela’s Ashes.”
Born and raised in the Ballinacurra Weston area of the city, Long has been involved in local politics all of his adult life. A member of Fine Gael since his teens, he only became a City Councillor eight years ago. While generally considered a popular public servant (at least according to Hot Press’ taxi driver), there was some national controversy in 2009 when, in the wake of Dell job losses following the company’s relocation to Poland, he reportedly remarked that Eastern European immigrants who had lost their jobs and were now receiving benefits should be sent home. Long refused to apologise, stating, “I’d rather be called a racist than a traitor.”
More recently the moustachioed Mayor hit the headlines over a fake Twitter account that had been set up in his name. Under the handle @MayorJimbo, some joker had been poking fun at Limerick’s first citizen with tweets like, “Me chins is wobbling off da scale today!”
A furious Long told the Limerick Chronicle, “When I discover this person, I would like to think all their assets are in their own name, because I will take what they have. The disappointing thing for me is that they don’t come up and say these things to my face. But they wouldn’t because they know what they would get.”
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