Cormac MacConnell: Country running fine with Patrick in charge
We smashed the last one, did we not, but their ghosts have to tenant their offices in Dublin until we either carpenter together a new government or wearily trudge off to the hustings again.
Meanwhile, is it not a fact that the country is somehow running like Swiss clockwork, without the politicians in charge?
The weather is significantly better. The evenings are brighter. There is evidence of growth all around.
Our exports are increasing, as our imports decrease. The euro is quite strong. The property market is slowly recovering.
Gangsters are efficiently getting rid of each other, every second day.
There is much evidence of inspired planning on many fronts.
I instance the reality that the national obesity problem is being subtly tackled by a Dublin transport strike, and a significant reduction in the production of Cadbury Creme Eggs.
It is clear, is it not, that there are very wise hands on the national tiller, in the absence of government. And that is the pure truth.
It is my experience that those powerful hands most often belong to men named Patrick on their birth certificates.
It is significant that this elite group, who have always ruled us in real terms, are never addressed as Paddy or PJ or Paudie or Pappy, or any of the socially acceptable abbreviations used elsewhere in society.
They are always respectfully addressed as Patrick and, in addition to their top role in governance, they are likely to be the judge that sends you to jail for six months, the hospital consultant who gives you only six months to live, or the banker who sends you legal processes threatening eviction and even worse.
In short, men called Patrick are powerful.
It was always like that. I covered hundreds of meetings of various county councils for many years. The councillors we elected came clattering into the chambers monthly, many cut from the same cloth as the Healy-Raes and many, also, known as Paddy or PJ or Paudie.
And they were invariably under the control of an unelected troika represented by the county manager, county engineer and county secretary.
That troika, many of them called Patrick too, as it happens, skilfully played the elected councillors, like a good fly fisherman with a mountain trout on the hook.
I do not know the identities of the top civil servants who are currently running the country more efficiently than either the last government or the next one.
I would bet, however, that the group includes a majority of the class of Patricks who are never addressed as Paddy or Pappy like the rest of us.
This elite group will not loudly drown the shamrock next week, either. They will be too busy drafting plans for the reduction of the rural population of Ireland, the closure of hundreds of post offices, the purchase of more hospital trolleys and, above all, the establishment of just one or two huge ranches in each county, instead of a proliferation of small farmers, many called Paddy, who are not operating nearly as efficiently as the big rancher would.
All that being said, let us all relax for a couple of weeks, as we leave the nation safe in the hands of this new troika.
Because there could be stressful times ahead, for sure.
