Tawdry deal tarnished a couple’s wedding — and a nation’s leader

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough, A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness — And Wilderness is Paradise enow.

THAT was love in those days. Thou beside me singing in the wilderness. At least it was in the days of Omar Khayyam, a Persian mathematician and poet of the 12th century.

When we were in school, we learned nothing of his maths (Commentaries on the difficult postulates of Euclid's book was just one of the tomes we could have enjoyed, or indeed his revolutionary Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra). Alas, it was only the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam to which we were ever introduced or at least the famous translation by Edward Fitzgerald.

The thing about Omar was that he knew about life. He knew about the passing nature of fame. He knew about love and what it meant, about passion and loss, about the inevitable end of things.

But alas for Omar, he had never heard of Hello! magazine. If he had, he would be horrified at the modern expression of love, which is only capable of being expressed in the most ostentatious displays of wealth. Perhaps, even so, he might have been able to offer a bit of advice:

Oh, come with old Khayyam, and

leave the Wise

To talk; one thing is certain, that

Life flies;

One thing is certain, and the Rest

is Lies;

The Flower that once has blown

for ever dies.

Isn't it true?

When was the last time a Taoiseach of Ireland saw one of his children marry when he was in office? If you think about it, when was the last time we had a wedding out of 10 Downing Street, the White House, or the Elysée Palace? Aren't they rare and wonderful events, certain to capture the imagination of the people at large? Can you imagine any of these events being sold to the highest bidder? Can you imagine the head of government in any of these countries putting himself in a position where he was unable to be photographed at the wedding of his son or daughter, for the sake of money?

Of course a wedding is a family event and families are entitled to privacy. They're entitled to celebrate in private, to mourn in private, to mark all of life's great events in private if they want to.

If the family of a prime minister or president wants privacy for something as personal as a wedding, no one is entitled to gainsay that.

But this wasn't a private wedding, it was a deal. In return for a fee, the world was locked out, and the taoiseach of Ireland was part of the deal.

How could the Taoiseach of Ireland agree to that? We've had one or two taoisigh (one in particular) known for their venality, recognised as willing to sell anything for a quick buck.

But never before have we had a Taoiseach forced to acquiesce in the sight of security men chasing photographers down the street, or having reporters evicted from a hotel, because a commercial deal had been done.

This Taoiseach, in his time, has been involved in highly secret and complex negotiations. He has settled major disputes, formed governments, helped to write international agreements, all in the glare of publicity.

Throughout those processes he has been surrounded by a media that has understood, by and large, the need for restraint, and he has always been willing to facilitate an appropriate photo opportunity.

The same Taoiseach has, of course, often set out to secure photo opportunities for far less worthy causes. The saying that he can't leave Drumcondra in the morning until every window in every house has been officially opened has never been far from the mark. He has built himself a profile using newspaper photographers in the past, to the point where he can rival most celebrities.

And when it comes to courting celebs, he's never been a slouch. Remember the photo-call with Arnold Schwarzenegger before the '97 election? Remember the countless times he has popped up on the Late Late Show, whenever they're paying tribute to anyone, dead or alive?

And now, it seems, he's a prisoner of the world of celebrity muscled security men, blacked-out windows, pop stars and 'style gurus' (whatever they are) for company.

'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights

and Days

Where Destiny with Men for

Pieces plays:

Hither and thither moves, and mates,

and slays,

And one by one back in the Closet lays.

When you sign a deal with Hello! magazine, or allow yourself to become party to such a deal, it seems that you lose control of your own destiny. And that might be an appropriate metaphor.

Up to a year or so ago, the Taoiseach seemed to be the chess-master, in control of the "chequer-board of nights and days".

Now he is to feature in an eight-page spread in Hello!, and he will be a bit player. Hello! panders to an audience whose primary interest is in Nicky and Westlife. The fact that Nicky is marrying a girl who happens to be the daughter of the Taoiseach (what a quaint word I wonder will they get the spelling right) of a little country to the west of the real marketplace is just a curiosity. By allowing himself to be party to this deal, our Taoiseach has moved from being chess-master to pawn.

There may be no going back. A day or two after the last election, when Bertie Ahern had been triumphantly re-elected, I wrote in the Irish Examiner that "the Taoiseach may discover now, as others have before him, that political victory comes with a heavy price tag. The next 12 months may be the most difficult, and the loneliest, of Bertie Ahern's career. He has been given the trust of the people, and they expect him to deliver."

We know already that he has failed to deliver. We know about the broken promises, the mismanagement of the economy, the cheese-paring in areas of social policy. We know that the gloss wore off in the face of the Taoiseach's apparent inability to lead in times of difficulty, his lack of imagination in the face of challenges that couldn't be solved by throwing money at them.

But I don't suppose any of us expected that our taoiseach would end up reduced to a situation where some photo editor in Barcelona where Hello! is published would be deciding whether Bertie should be cropped from the picture.

Maybe there are other photo editors, this time of the political kind, in his own party wondering whether the time is coming when Bertie should be cropped from the big picture.

The demeaning nature of last weekend's commercial arrangements won't have helped. Once the chessmaster agrees to become a pawn, his enemies stop being afraid of him. The Taoiseach should, perhaps, have listened to Omar Khayyam.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.