Against the Tide

... reveal ... many intimate details of a controversial public career and the private pain and deprivation suffered in consequence of an unbending personal integrity. For nearly forty years, name has been synonymous with political controversy. He has been attacked as a dangerous and subversive radical. He has been dismissed as a marginal figure frustrated by disappointment and betrayal. But has been steered by his own star. He has often been a solitary voice for humane and decent values in Irish life: egalitarianism, liberalism and socialism ... His career is dominated ... by a single event - the Mother and Child Scheme of 1951. Yet his most outstanding achievement - the virtual eradication of tuberculosis from Ireland - was accomplished when he was Minister for Health and ... only in his mid thirties.-Back cover.