Spouses can provide a unique insight into what makes our politicians tick

THE Fianna Fáil conspiracy theorists have it all worked out.

It’s a cunning plan to counter-act Bertie’s impending grandfatherhood.

Him becoming a grandfather before the election would be a great boost, a great tug at the national heart strings.

That’s the reason, they suggest, that Fine Gael have come up with a counter-plot: a way to showcase Enda’s family values by constantly presenting him in public with his wife.

OK, “constantly” may be pushing it a bit, but when did an exaggeration ever get in the way of a good conspiracy theory?

Whenever Fianna Fáil get bothered, in the run-up to an election, those theories sprout within the party like a lettuce that’s bolted: three times normal height and of no practical use, but won’t stop growing.

Right now, the view that media is conspiring against them is believed by roughly the same number of party activists as believe the opposition are pulling strokes and that those strokes are working.

What really gets the Fianna Fáil conspiracy theorists going about Enda Kenny appearing with his wife is the fact that the wife involved is Fionnuala O’Kelly, who, just a decade or so ago, was managing Fianna Fáil’s PR for them.

A glamorous photograph of her even appeared in the published door-stopper volume of Charlie Haughey’s speeches. She was a major asset to the party during some of the hairiest years.

Stories were told about how impressive an operator she was. Like the time, during the EU presidency, when she was doing a walkabout in the massive pressroom filled with journalists from all over Europe, and slowed her pace as she overheard a French reporter briefing his home office on the phone.

The French reporter was visibly hung-over. He didn’t know the drink that’s one too many. Or the drink that’s six too many.

Those drinks had inhibited his delivery of a story to the French media outlet employing him. That media outlet wanted explanations. The French journalist did not tell them that he was sick, dehydrated and had the kind of headache a sledgehammer, would deliver. He told them a lie.

The so-called PR people working for the Irish Government, he explained, had cocked everything up. They were completely incompetent.

It was at this point that Fionnuala O’Kelly, one of the Irish Government PR people being derided, stepped up behind him and took the telephone handset out of his damp hand. Like a Mexican Wave, the heads of the rest of the journalists turned, one by one, to watch what happened next.

She greeted the journalist’s boss in perfect French. Introduced herself in perfect French. Explained all the facilities which had been available to the journalist in perfect French. Exposed the liar for what he was, in perfect French. And handed the phone back to him with a terrifying smile.

If anybody, back then, had suggested that a born career woman like Fionnuala O’Kelly would later adopt the role of political spouse, they’d have been laughed at.

If anybody had suggested she’d adopt the role of political spouse to the Leader of Fine Gael, hysteria would have broken out. But then, a suggestion at that time that Enda Kenny would ever lead Fine Gael or that he would do so with energy and resolution wouldn’t have generated much agreement, either.

That’s what happened, however, and in recent days, she’s appeared on radio and TV alongside the FG leader.

“You see?” go the conspiracists. “Cunning plan.”

Which mildly over-estimates both the sophistication of the Fine Gael campaign (no offence, lads) and at the same time grossly over-estimates any potential damage to the Taoiseach arising from opposition emphasis on his single status. It hasn’t done him a bit of harm in the theatre of public opinion, down through the years.

The more simple explanation, of course, is that the joint appearances have happened because media, like the rest of us, is always inquisitive about the spouses of prominent politicians. Hence the stories circulated about Ian Paisley addressing his wife as “Mommy.”

Hence the market for exposes by his estranged wife of Jim McDaid’s shirt-whitening practices. Hence the interest in the finely-matched brains of Garret FitzGerald and his late wife, Joan.

Hence the constant pursuit of other political leaders to see if their spouses will appear or talk. (Trevor Sargent’s wife appears in pictures, but doesn’t talk. Other wives — and the one husband of a political leader — do neither).

It’s legitimate for the media to pursue the spouses. Not that they always have to devote much energy to pursuing them. President Mary Robinson’s spouse helped market her as a candidate by telling the nation, on a pre-election Late, Late Show, that they’d be getting two for the price of one if they elected her. They’d get his services as well as hers.

While Martin McAleese made no such claim before his wife became President, his behind-the-scenes work throughout her presidency has genuinely proven the ‘‘two for the price of one” claim, in his case.

It’s all part of the character issue. If it is the case that “by their friends you will know them,” then equally it is also true that, ‘‘by their spouses you will know them.’’ The person who takes up with an aspirant politician, the person who marries one, the person who supports them in what has to be one of the most difficult professions available, represents something interesting about the politician and has a unique insight into what makes that politician tick.

To meet Mrs Jack Lynch, or to receive one of her elegantly hand-written notes, was to understand what stiffened the “nice fellow’s” spine when it needed stiffening.

They’re in every constituency, coast to coast, those spouses and partners, male and female. Fielding phone calls, protecting children, listening to and sometimes texting radio programmes.

They do laundry and take messages, do the spouses. They tolerate missed family dinners and snappy answers from pressured candidates.

They grieve over snippy media references the reporters don’t even register as theyutter them. They canvass. They report to HQ when their partner isn’t mentioned, as she should be, on party handouts from another candidate on the same ticket. They read national opinion polls with dread. They read local opinion polls with terror.

They smile and say nothing when they (as often happens) hear themselves described as the real brains or the real politician in their household.

They don’t smile, but still say nothing when (as occasionally happens) they hear themselves described as the real liability behind their partner.

If their partners get elected and sent to the back benches, they face years of living with a frustrated other half. If they get elected and elevated to head a Government department, the spouse — if they work outside the home — faces constant scrutiny of their every commercial action for traces of conflict of interest.

The astonishing thing is how often these hidden assets claim to enjoy their role.