Blueshirt humour falls short but Enda still wants the last laugh

FINE Gael eat their young. Or, at least, some of the Blueshirts do. The party’s health spokesman, 38-year-old Dr Liam Twomey (young by political standards) was on stage addressing delegates when the fire alarm went off at the Green Glens Arena on Saturday morning.

Blueshirt humour falls short but Enda still wants the last laugh

“That’s the bullshit detector going off,” one party member was heard to observe.

But no, Enda Kenny insisted, the Government are the ones who are full of bull.

“But Fine Gael are different. No empty promises from us. Like the waiting lists that were supposed to disappear. And the 2,000 extra gardaí who actually did!”

The crowd actually laughed, which, to that point on Saturday, had been a pretty rare occurrence.

That was because most of the jokes earlier in the day were, well, a little lame.

At the Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis in Killarney last month, Arts Minister John O’Donoghue had the party faithful in tears of laughter with his poetry and puns - the targets of which were inevitably the opposition.

“When the Blueshirt has been washed,” Mr O’Donoghue recited, “and the Green agenda quashed, and the Rabbitte caught in one headlight too many; They’ll be too tired out by far, to meet again in Mullingar; The three stooges, Messrs Sargent, Rabbitte, Kenny.”

By contrast, Fine Gael had Jim O’Keeffe attempting to crack jokes. Justice Minister Michael McDowell, he said, was nothing but “a refugee from the Law Library”.

In contrast to Mr O’Donoghue, tears of pain were the only thing Jim looked like drawing from his faithful.

Deirdre Clune had the task of introducing the party’s MEPs, one of whom is Mairéad McGuinness, formerly better known as the host of an RTÉ agricultural programme.

Mairéad succeeded in her Euro run, Deirdre announced, because she kept an “ear to the ground”, which - wait for it - just happened to be the name of the programme in question. Such mirth!

Thankfully, a video helped save the day. Delegates were presented with a montage of images of Fianna Fáil and PD ministers and their numerous cock-ups. And the accompanying music? “Send in the Clowns.”

Then it was time for a different tune, because Enda was in the building. Here Come the Good Times by A-House blasted around the arena as Enda bounded on stage.

And he hit all the right notes, telling delegates that Fine Gael would make it back to government and, what’s more, they would prove “a different kind of government. Honest government.”

Trust Enda, the message went. Sure, with that angelic-looking face, who wouldn’t?

A question which one cynic wryly answered: “Michael Ring.”

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