A "maverick", a "rebel", "militant", "cynical", "irresponsible" and "old-fashioned" to boot.
These are just some of the descriptions of himself which Brendan Ogle, the trade union leader at the centre of the first significant ESB strike in 14 years, has seen and heard in the media.
"And they said I did things, too," he comments wryly in the preface to his 2003 book, Off The Rails.
"I 'wreaked havoc', I 'circled wagons' and I was 'holding the public to ranson'. I also 'took a perverse pride in causing hardship' . . ."
Off The Rails tells the story of how the Irish Locomotive Drivers' Association (Ilda), led by Ogle, became embroiled in a bitter three-month dispute with Iarnród Éireann in the summer of 2000.
For many, as it states on the book's dust jacket, Ogle was "a figure responsible for creating chaos", while for others his was "simply an honest voice in a changing industrial relations world".
Five years on from the acrimonious Ilda dispute, Ogle is, as some would have it, once again creating chaos.
The Athlone-based father of two would no doubt reject such depictions as caricature, typical of media hostile to an anti-establishment union official.
It is hardly coincidental, however, that Ogle's arrival on the scene has coincided with the first breach in a partnership approach which has served the ESB and its workers well since the last major strike in 1991.
He has been negotiating for ATGWU members at the ESB since he was appointed a senior official of that union last October.
The former train-driver is conspicuously anti-partnership, as is his union, the ATGWU.
Employers, he wrote in Off The Rails, are "duty-bound to get as much work out of their employees for as little as possible". The job of unions is to get a deal for their members "for as little sacrifice as possible".
His approach made him, in his own words, "Public Enemy No 1" during the Ilda dispute.
Public criticism, however, did not deflect him then and is unlikely to do so now. Highly articulate and good-humoured even in the midst of a crisis, he is resolute to the point, his detractors would say, of being stubborn.
Having led 1,200 network technicians into an all-too-avoidable strike, he now appears to have a choice: back down or escalate the dispute. And backing down, observers fear, are words that do not feature in Brendan Ogle's vocabulary.
