Sorry state of the nation
BARACK IN THE GROOVE
HE didn’t part the Red Sea, but US President Barack Obama did transform Dublin’s Dame Street into a human river of hope — and for a nation so tired of being on its knees that was miracle enough.
Speaking to multiple transatlantic audiences at once, Mr Obama skilfully used his distant Offaly ancestors’ story of survival to both seduce the Dublin crowd and also anchor himself deep within the American psyche of immigrant achievement and legitimacy back home.
He only stayed on Irish soil for 10 hours, and after the burst of light that was Obama’s presence, evening fell hard on Dame Street. A late rain did much to wash away the traces of the multitude — but the buzz of energy released by the president’s words still tingled long into the night air.
MURDER, SHE SAID
THE entry of Martin McGuinness electrified the Áras race, but Miriam O’Callaghan cranked up the voltage further with her lightening-strike Prime Time debate question asking how he squared his religious beliefs with “the fact that you were involved in the murder of so many people” through IRA involvement.
NOTES ON A SCANDAL
DAVID NORRIS quit the presidential race in August, citing an error of judgment regarding letters of clemency he sent to Israeli judges pleading for an ex-partner convicted of the statutory rape of a 15-year-old.
Then the senator re-entered the campaign six weeks later, claiming he had made an error of judgment over pulling out due to his previous error of judgment.
Despite an early lead and a late rally, the electorate delivered a damning verdict.
Voters were not moved by his evocation of Samuel Beckett when he initially pulled out: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
Indeed, he would have been just as well sticking to his beloved James Joyce, particularly the line from Ulysses, which despairingly announces: “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.”
GAY, YOU SAY?
MUCH tabloid excitement and innuendo greeted the election of two openly gay TDs to the Dáil, but perhaps the milestone will hasten the day when it is as unnecessary to routinely describe deputies as “openly gay” as it is to refer to Mary McAleese as “openly Northern”.
ENDA ON CRAIC
SO dizzy at playing host to Lizzie and Barack, it sounded like Enda overdid the auld céad míle fáilte and started mainlining craic.
“Obviously, this is the first occasion in world history I think there has been two bilaterals with an American president in the space of six or seven weeks,” he gushed in a giddy fashion as Mr Obama smiled benignly beside him.
But did the president think this and his previous St Patrick’s Day get-together with Enda really merited inclusion in “world history” along with other key moments like the Moon landing?
A ROYAL BOW
IT was the moment the Queen of England bowed her head in respect to Ireland’s Republican dead in a day of extraordinary symbolism and raw emotion.
Union Jack flags fluttered in the shadow of the GPO and God Save The Queen sounded within the Garden of Remembrance as black balloons of protest drifted above it.
Tension rippled through the air, the explosion of three firecrackers in nearby streets audible as Queen Elizabeth II, accompanied by President Mary McAleese, descended the steps to the garden’s pool of reflection.
They had just travelled through a city centre that was eerily empty, apart from the massed ranks of gardaí, and a smattering of well-wishers and a tiny huddle of protesters who fringed the security cordon.
The tension then drained away while the Queen headed to Trinity College Dublin and as she left behind the Book of Kells, an intriguing new chapter in Ireland’s narrative had clearly been opened by her visit.
The further south the Queen travelled, the more relaxed security and the atmosphere became, culminating in a merry monarch and friendly fishmongers exchanging smiles at Cork’s English Market.
While it would be historically unfortunate to say she conquered, the Queen came, she saw and she concurred with a warm national feeling of goodwill.
CRINGE KENNY
IT was not as bad as having to deny you were drunk on the radio as Brian Cowen did to global guffaws.
However, Enda Kenny’s election night promise to stay honest because “Paddy likes to know what the story is,” provoked a thumping national hangover nonetheless.
THREE LITTLE PIGGIES
NOT known for his male model looks, Shane Ross oinked his way to infamy along with fellow style icons Mick Wallace and Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan as they bitched about the appearance of Mary Mitchell O’Connor when they thought the Dáil mics were off.
Charmless Wallace dubbed her “Miss Piggy”, churlish Ming dissed her passion for pink and chump Ross meowed: “She’s nothing sensational.”
The Three Amigos were exposed as the Dáil’s Three Amoebas — spineless and slug-like.
A HEAD HANGS
BERTIE’S official portrait appeared on the walls of Leinster House without ceremony in August, but then as taxpayers were recoiling at his €270,000 expense bill, it was hardly surprising.
In a way, the painting is the Celtic Tiger’s final legacy — leaving Ireland with its very own Picture of Dorian Gray in reverse. Fans of Oscar Wilde’s novel will recall Dorian gets up to all sorts of shenanigans without a blemish befalling his appearance — all the resultant disfigurement goes onto a portrait he keeps in the attic.
Considered one of the last great gothic horror stories, the fable retold for modern times is turned on its head. Ahern’s portrait contains not a hint of unpleasantness — rather, it is the public image of Bertie that has become marred beyond recognition.
At the end of the novel, Dorian attempts an act of contrition in the hope of restoring his image to its original condition and salvaging his soul, but when he gazes at the portrait he sees there is no change except: “That in the eyes there was a look of cunning, and in the mouth the curved wrinkle of the hypocrite.”
But such a comparison would truly be fiction — Bertie has never offered any act of contrition for his central role in Ireland’s economic collapse and subsequent loss of national sovereignty.
SMILE, THOUGH YOUR PARTY’S BREAKING
“AM I supposed to be going around grinning like a Cheshire Cat at everything?” Enda Kenny uncharacteristically snapped.
And what had so offended him? Well, only the selection of Gay Mitchell as his party’s presidential candidate.
Mr Kenny wanted Pat Cox; he could have lived with Mairead McGuinness, but he was certainly not glad his party had gone Gay.
BATTLE OF THE BULGE
IN the US, the wonderfully named congressman Anthony Weiner lied about tweeting pictures of his, ahem, weiner and was washed up; in Britain Tory peer John Taylor lied about €12,000 of travel expenses and was banged up in jail, while here, Cabinet Minister Leo Varadkar told the truth about the probable need for a second emergency bailout and he was strung up by his Cabinet colleagues.
GARRET’S GOOD SHOW
IN a state funeral especially fashioned to fit the gentleness of the man being honoured, there were no guns, just Garret.
The traditional graveside volley of shots was done away with, replaced by a trickle of tears from family and friends.
An ovation over the tricolour- draped coffin was also considered unnecessary, for what words could there be left to say about a life almost as long as that of the state whose modern face Dr FitzGerald did so much to shape?
LIFE OF BRIAN
FAREWELL Brian Lenihan, we imagine you enjoying a stiff sherry in the great Law Library in the sky.
HURLEY SOME MISTAKE?
PRESIDENT Obama accepted Mr Kenny’s parting gift of a hurley with glee, warning the Republican-dominated Congress back home what he could do with the stick — but probably not realising that in the handover, the Taoiseach had actually been teaching him an illegal up and down “chop” swing with it.
As Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh might have put it: “The President is from Hawaii, the Taoiseach from Mayo — neither a hurling stronghold.”
WE’VE GOT YOUR NUMBER
DESPITE Insisting he and his father Jackie had absolutely no idea who had done the dialling, Michael Healy-Rae paid the Oireachtas €2,639 to cover the cost for 3,636 calls from unknown persons in Leinster House which helped him win the Celebrities Go Wild reality TV show in 2007.
If only they knew who was to blame, then they could get them to ‘fess-up Stevie Wonder style to the taxpayer — “I Just Called To Say I Mugged You.”
WILLIE, OR WON’T YOU?
STRANGEST website of the year, SexyTD.com, asked the question that had probably never troubled us before, namely: “Which deputy would you rather sleep with?”
The site pitted two random TDs against one another in the sexy stakes and voters then had to choose the one they would prefer to, ahem, get to know better.
One most unusual choice thrown up by the site was whether you would rather sleep with Gerry Adams or Willie O’Dea — this was the point at which the Irish Examiner made its excuses and left.
FIANNA FAKER
WITH a massive 13-point lead and just days to go, the Áras looked all but in Sean Gallagher’s grasp, then Martin McGuinness opened fire on live TV and within the space of 20 jaw-dropping minutes, the frontrunner’s future unravelled as he deployed just about every incendiary word in the Fianna Fáil dictionary of things you don’t dare say anymore.
After initially claiming to have no “recollection” of accepting a €5,000 cheque on behalf of Fianna Fáil, Gallagher then suddenly announced he may have picked up an “envelope” for the party from a man he now knows to be a convicted fuel smuggler.
And thus, self-styled “Independent” Gallagher crystallised in the public mind as a Fianna Faker — but one unable to fight his way out of a paper envelope.
GAY RAGE
GAY by name, grim by nature would have been an apt slogan for the disaster-laden Fine Gael presidential campaign as their candidate aped the depressing hue of Angela’s Ashes to present the electorate with Mitchell’s Misery — and unsurprisingly, it failed to become a bestseller.
By the end of the four-week race it felt like Mitchell had been starring in his own low-budget homemade horror movie after contracting the rage virus and giving us: “28 Gays Later”.
Quite simply, Mitchell was the most spectacularly useless mainstream presidential candidate ever.
BUT ENDA’S HOPE FLOATS
SOLVING the ever-present euro crisis must seem a doddle when you consider how bizarrely complicated the Brussels summit arrangements are.
“Only pin holders of a red floater badge combined with a personal blue, grey or green/yellow badge will be permitted to enter the Red Zone on level 50,” the summit programme bemusingly stated.
And don’t even think of getting onto level 80, the VIP dining area, without a “gold float” pass combined with a red and blue badge — though there’s no need to fret, Mr Kenny has all of those.
The upshot of all of this is that, while Enda may be lauded as a golden floater by his European colleagues, the Taoiseach’s pledge to secure a better bailout deal for Ireland was largely flushed away.
DAVID “CHUCK” NORRIS
IN the manner of the muscle bound action hero, the Joycean scholar rallied the Seanad to fight for its life as he temporarily took the speaker’s chair on its first day of the new term. Some hailed his call to arms as “presidential” — and it was clear that if he ever stood for president of the Oireachtas Amateur Dramatics Society, “Chuck” would sweep all before him.
“Like an army, the Seanad should be reorganised, drilled and disciplined, with us keeping ourselves honed in mind and body for the coming conflict,” Chuck implored.
Sadly, Norris was too much for the senators: after sitting for less than two-and-a-half hours, they took a full week off to recover.
ENDA’S EMERGENCY BYPASS
THE Roscommon Hospital rumpus left Mr Kenny looking like Dr Do-Little-But-U-Turns. But even the release of a tape of the Taoiseach pledging to keep the hospital’s emergency department open after strenuously insisting he had never made such a pledge did not phase him. Mr Kenny “explained” the commitment to save the services was only official Fine Gael party policy, not his personal promise.
To be filed with other classic election lies such as: “We’ll burn the bondholders,” and “Not another cent for Anglo.”
CROSS-DRESSING KENNY?
SNIGGERING socialist Joe Higgins painted an ugly picture with his remarks on the Roscommon Hospital hoo-hah: “Fine Gael policy is your new flexible friend to fit all occasions — the new Fine Gael brand of pantyhose to cover every possible emergency and every size and form of emergency.”
Enda and Health Minister James Reilly in pantyhose? Now that mental image really would be enough to make you feel ill.
ON THE JOB
THE long promised ‘Jobs Budget’ had everything — except any real jobs. But then, in economic terms, this is not a real Government of a real sovereign nation as everything has to be approved by our masters in the troika. So the Taoiseach was making the best of the bad hand he inherited by announcing 5,000 unemployed people would get an extra 50 quid a week to take up internships.
Though Social Protection Minister Joan Burton could have been more careful when calling it an “employment dating agency” given that the most famous internship in history was that undertaken by Monica Lewinsky. And perhaps the slogan, “Hands On Experience For Interns”, was not entirely suitable considering Lewinsky’s experiences at the hands of Bill Clinton?
HONESTLY HUMILIATING
SOME Labour TDs branded their leader a bit of wimp after the pre-budget row over cutting child benefit led Enda to “joke” in the Dáil: “I will make an honest leader of the Tánaiste, Eamon Gilmore.”
One prominent deputy confronted Gilmore at a parliamentary meeting, complaining: “I can’t believe you’d let the prime minister of the country stand up in the Dáil and say he is going to make an honest man of you.”
MEN ONLY
WHEN Micheál Martin unveiled his “front” bench wags sniggered that as there is no “back” bench to speak of due to Fianna Fáil’s dramatic reduction in numbers, in reality, it was just a bench.
A bench looking a tad weather-worn, what with it being made up of deadwood from the last battered administration and drift wood left from the general election washout.
Now an openly same-sex party, Mr Martin is touchy about not having a solitary female TD: “That was the decision of the electorate,” he snapped. Nice move Micheál — blame the voters.
MICHEAL D DAY
POOR old Michael D almost fell at the first hurdle as he fought his way into the Dublin Castle count as president-elect through a swirl of photographers that became so unbalanced the whole scrum threatened to tip and leave the diminutive Galwegian and his dodgy knee heading for the deck.
As a Higgins handler beat back the snappers with a briefcase, the serene septuagenarian pleaded with the flashbulb posse to kindly remember his ailment down below and the moment of danger passed.
LABOUR’S LOST LOVE
AFTER losing three TDs in less than a month, Eamon Gilmore is set to be the only deputy left in his party by the time the next budget comes around if the same rate of attrition continues. However, the departure of Patrick Nulty just 40 days after taking his seat caused much mirth among colleagues as Nulty was the only Labourite to actually fight an election on the Programme for Government the party painfully agreed with Fine Gael.
But Dublin West proved to be a bye-bye election victory for Labour as Nulty walked in disgust at cuts to disabled teenagers — now on hold — and a cutback in heating benefits for pensioners — who remain in the cold.
THE WOMAN WHO WALKED INTO BOARDS
MARY DAVIS was level-pegging with Gallagher when she became mired in controversy over the 25 state bodies she has been involved with. Then Gallagher soared ahead of her in the polls as the coronation of Ms Davis as Quango Queen and her emergence as the poster girl for air-brushed appearances sank her bid to be Mary III.
SCORN IN THE USA
THE fact Dana saw nothing wrong in keeping it secret she had been the citizen of another country for the previous 12 years while seeking to be first citizen of this country was merely the beginning of a political car crash campaign that had just about everything — including an actual car crash.
An ugly family court case in the US and claims of a murder attempt here — prompted by nothing more sinister than a flat tyre blowing out — were worthy of a whole new level of strangeness.
BERTIE’S BLAME SHAME
THE man who told people to commit suicide if they were dumb enough to think Ireland was heading for a recession in 2007 delighted us again by finally admitting who was to blame for the economic crash. Oh, of course it wasn’t him — it was all the fault of the press.
“There should be an investigation into it,” Bertie Ahern claimed. [The media] should have been following the economy from August 2007, but they weren’t, they were following me. I think a lot of these guys really should have looked at themselves. The government were following the economy but the media weren’t. It was a very poor job by the media really. They were shown to be incompetent and that was the trouble — everything was on me.”
ALL BETS ARE OFF
BERTIE’S outburst was clearly — desperately — trying to position himself ahead of the looming verdict from the Mahon corruption probe report, which is set to smash onto the political scene in the New Year. Oh, you must remember the Mahon corruption probe? All that unpleasantness in the witness box as a squirming Ahern attempted to explain away all that cash flowing into his 23 bank accounts while he was finance minister in the early 1990s?
And who could fail to be convinced by explanations for various amounts of money arriving in his bank accounts, which could be summed-up as: “I won it on the gee-gees,” “These men I didn’t really know made me take it in Manchester,” and “It was from two spontaneous dig-outs a year apart from two separate sets of friends who had no knowledge of each other, but both wanted to give the finance minister enough for a deposit on a little house.”
But just like the economic collapse, no doubt the Mahon corruption probe will blame the press? I wouldn’t bet on it Bertie — no matter how much you won on those legendary gee-gees.
ENDA’S TOY STORY
AFTER terrifying lone parents and menacing dole victims in the run-up to the bloodbath budget, Enda Kenny briefly threatened to wreck the very last thing the nation has to look forward to — the Late Late Toy Show.
Thankfully, his state of the nation depress-fest was yanked away from the prime Friday night slot so we were at least saved the horror of Enda trying to get down with the kids and presenting the broadcast in the style of the missing, older, Jedward triplet: “S’up voters! S’up Santa! The budget’s, like, really uncool, my bad dudesters...”
But then Enda is a bit like Angela Merkel’s very own Buzz Lightyear toy, constantly parroting her favourite catchphrase: “To austerity and beyond!” Maybe that’s why his spin flunkies now try and shut down every press conference with the Taoiseach after just two questions — they fear his batteries might give out.
S’up Enda?
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
