The hangover’s just beginning for Gilmore

Perhaps coming on stage to the sounds of a song about dealing with a massive hangover and then referencing the Titanic was not the ideal opener for Eamon Gilmore.

Throw in a mid-afternoon riot and you could be suspicious that the Labour Party conference had not gone too well. But you’d be wrong.

Like Mrs Doyle in Father Ted, Labour seems to love the misery; it is their glue — nothing binds you closer than the adhesive of austerity.

This was the mother of all comedowns and they decided to wrap themselves in the comfort blanket that nobody else likes them any more so they just had to get on with each other. Well, up to a point, anyway.

Gilmore glided on stage to the strains of Elbow’s One Day Like This, probably unaware the lyrics belied the soothing refrain of the underbeat, and could neatly sum up Labour’s hangover at landing in power and being unable to deliver on the feel-good promises it made during electoral intoxication: “Drinking in the morning sun/Blinking in the morning sun/Shaking off the heavy one/Heavy like a loaded gun/What made me behave that way?/ Using words I never say?”

A dull, pedestrian holding speech was then only marginally enlivened by a totally fatuous, and meaningless, reference to the Titanic being “only a few hours from its doom” at “this very moment exactly 100 years ago”.

Given the speculation that Joan Burton is looming in the darkness, waiting to sink his listing leadership, this was an interesting aside — especially as Joan had chosen to wear a jacket of sheer iceberg white for the occasion.

But on Gilmore sailed, to the safety of the Mahon corruption probe and the searchlight it had shone on the shoddiness of the Irish political elite.

The Labour leader railed against the “poisonous creep” it had exposed. But strangely, he was not referring specifically to the liar Bertie Ahern, but rather the political creep of cynicism and corruption in general.

With manic finger signals from his handlers that he was about to run out of television prime time and a full page of his speech still to go, Gilmore suddenly went from second to fifth gear in his keynote address delivery as he speeded up like an old record played at the wrong speed.

He added to the feeling of tired nostalgia by throwing out the old chestnut, “We shall overcome.” Oh dear, Eamon, is that really the best you can do?

The garda lines were certainly overcome earlier in the day as protesters breached barricades and started throwing themselves at the venue like left-wing human hand grenades as the party’s centenary conference went into security shutdown — prompting much gallows humour about how in 100 years, Labour had gone from the great lock-out to the grim lock-in.

“Oh, if only we were still banging on windows instead of doing Fine Gael’s dirty work,” mused one delegate, longing for the impotence of opposition above the imperfection of power.

And it was not going Eamon’s way internally either, as the election to party chairmanship of Galway East TD Colm Keaveney — a lightening conductor for those disillusioned with the Tory thrust of coalition — proved.

Keaveney’s initials earned him the nickname of CK1, and CK won because, like the aftershave, he lingered. No hand was left unshaken, no ear unbent.

Though the delay in announcing the result led to a swelter of conspiracy theories — accusations of leadership vote rigging, the sudden appearance of mystery delegates, and references to North Korea all surfaced.

But in the end CK1 won hands down, even though those not in love with the smell of his politics (the leadership) sniffily branded him CK2 in an attempt to suggest he may not be the real thing.

Supporters of his rival Derek Nolan muttered darkly about their man being the subject of anti-ginger bias, but in reality he was just a poor candidate.

It will be interesting to see if the chairmanship now becomes the focus for an alternate narrative to Gilmore’s Fine Gael-lite age of austerity, or merely acts as a useful discontent distraction for the leadership.

Gilmore promised it would just take two more bad budgets and then we’d all be back on the road to recovery, but if he really believes that he is fooling nobody but himself.

After a very half-hearted rendition of The Red Flag, delegates slunk out of the hall to the strain of Elbow’s self-loathing disgust at the broken promises of the night before once more — sobering up to the sickening reality that the hangover is only just beginning to kick in.