Awaiting the word of Bishop Bertie

THE Taoiseach was like a bishop on the eve of announcing diocesan changes when he made a pilgrimage to the national ploughing championships at Grangeford, near Tullow, in Co Carlow yesterday.

Bertie Ahern’s every move and spoken word was studied with anxious intensity by political curates, hoping to be given a parish of their own, and by incumbent “PPs”, wanting to hold on to posts.

Talk about today’s reshuffle in the cathedral chapter of Government dominated conversations as speculation reached almost religious fervour in crowded tillage fields and shopping arcades.

Bertie, however, was as coy as any member of the Sacred College of Cardinals going into a Conclave at the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican to elect a Pope.

Indeed, he was as quiet as a church mouse on the issue, as he smiled angelically and mingled with his flock before ceremonially cutting a red tape to officially open the event.

Bertie never once gave the slightest hint as to who was going or coming in today’s long-awaited changes in the Coalition Curia.

But for one serving political parish priest, however, it was a case of mission completed. Joe Walsh becomes a pastor emeritus of Government today after toiling among the farmers for years.

He strode into retirement with hymns of praise being sounded for his public service by “Bertie the Bishop”, and Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, and by the farm and agri business leaders, who almost canonised him with tributes.

Farmers slapped him on the back, applauded him with gusto and shouted “Well done, minister”, as he strode through the grounds in a carnival atmosphere with words of thanks all round for his services to agriculture.

But for those in political parochial houses across the country, the tantalising wait for today’s announcements was akin to the Mayo football supporters’ sighing for the referee’s final whistle at Croke Park on Sunday.

The politicos will do further penance for a while today as they fervently hope, and maybe even pray, they will be summoned to the “bishop’s” palace in Government buildings and told their fate.