How to fall from grace on the back of an Evel Knievel protest lorry

IT would have been fine to be seen with Fr Brian D’Arcy a couple of weeks ago, but right now, you’d want to steer clear of him, since the day when he was seen on the back of a lorry — in and of itself so repellently resonant of rural demagoguery — along with the Quinn family.

It would have been acceptable for him to express solidarity with them in private. Appropriate, even. But to take part in a rally supporting lawbreakers has been seen as a step too far.

Roughly a month ago, things were very different. Fr D’Arcy was rendered heroic by the revelation that the Vatican had set a censor over him to make sure his writings stayed within the rules. This clip over the ear made him — briefly — persona grata with the kind of people who might have regarded him as a lightweight specialising in the funerals of pop stars.

He blew that brief dalliance with acceptability fairly spectacularly by climbing on board the Quinn lorry. Being there was bad enough. Speaking at the occasion was worse, bringing down on his head much condemnation, the mildest of which took the form of doubting his judgement, the harshest of which positioned him as a fellow traveller of country crooks.

Interesting to see the old taboos taking new forms. In the days of the Puritans, the moral stance of the ruling class was demonstrated by forcing the dissident to embroider a great capital letter on their clothes, so all could see at a glance that they were, for example, an adulterer. The high-minded thereby received instant unspoken instruction: Shun these readily-identifiable wrong ’uns. Shunning cast loose anyone given to either crime or question, isolating them from the community of family, friends and neighbours. It moved the person being shunned from Us to Them. Shunning did more than redefine the shunned. It strengthened the community excluding the shunned, reminding each member of the comfort of inclusion.

That need to be a member of “us” rather than “them”, portrayed so brutally in Lord of the Flies, is fundamental to humanity. Once group identity is formed, as soon as another group presents with claims to the first group’s territory, hostility is almost inevitable. Social psychologist Henri Tajfel, who undertook a study of teenage boys in Bristol, found “the mere fact of division into groups is enough to trigger discriminatory behaviour”.

The identification of an individual or group as enemies tends to be permanent. Allowing an enemy to slip the bonds of their allocated role can be seen as treachery.

Abraham Lincoln, facing the fury of close associates for linking arms with former rivals, remarked that he had expected them to approve of him making his enemies his friends. His stance was virtuous but unrealistic. When members of an enemy Out Group are accepted into an In Group, as infrequently happens, that acceptance tends to come with a cost, perhaps of ritual humiliation. It rarely leads, as it did in the case of Lincoln’s administration, to promotion and high office.

In the current national standoff around the Quinn family, each side sees themselves as the In Group and views the other side as definitively the Out group. To be seen as standing publicly with the family, to brave the cameras and the furious media comment, is interpreted from the point of view of those involved as Us (rural commonsense folk grateful for the jobs Seán Quinn delivered in our area) versus Them (professionally angry urban commentators). The other side sees it as Us, the ethical, versus Them, the unethical (also defiant or deluded).

Fr D’Arcy, in yesterday’s Sunday World, explained his presence on the Quinn protest lorry as the action of a man “born and reared in these parts”. He behaved towards people he has known for more than 50 years “the same way as I would be with any family in trouble”.

HE calls it neighbourliness, but has been roundly condemned for tribalism and “GAA thinking”. Nobody has mentioned the exigencies of simple friendship. But then, in moral frenzies, friendship tends to be swept to one side by the either/or context that quickly develops — as in the case of the aftermath of the Cavan protest. Either you’re against Seán Quinn as a deluded over-reacher who, thinking he was above all regulation and most law, helped bring down a nation and impoverish a lot more than the 7,000 to whom he had once delivered jobs, or you’re for him, in which case you’re colluding with him and his clan — you’re a moral fellow traveller.

Those, however, are not the only choices. Friendship does not require anybody to accept, condone or agree with wrong-doing by a friend. Neither does it require public condemnation of such wrong-doing, although, significantly, Fr D’Arcy yesterday clearly felt driven to: A) reveal his disapproval of much of what Seán Quinn and his family have done; and B) to simultaneously reveal that he had expressed that disapproval to the individuals involved.

Each and every one of us knows people who have taken shameful actions. The AA member whose drinking past includes violence to his wife or partner. The teacher proven to have molested children. The politician who took money they shouldn’t have taken. Each transgression is different in the kind of damage done and the level of public condemnation attracted.

What they have in common is the choice they present to friends — most particularly to well-known friends: To stand fast or disappear. Only a small minority is ever prepared to stand in public with the transgressors, knowing that they will be accused of collusion and perhaps worse. The hard option is to stand beside them. The easy option is to shun them.

Sometimes, the wrongdoers are so acutely aware of the implications for their friends of being seen with them that they will almost invite shunning as a way to protect those friends. Charles Haughey, in his disgraced isolation in Kinsealy, learning of the death of a dear friend, telephoned the bereaved family to say that he would not attend the funeral in order to save them the shame of association with him.

The Quinn protest showed none of that sad sensitivity. Rather, it drew on the Evel Knievel theory of life: “Bones break. Pain is temporary. Chicks dig scars. And glory is forever.” Which is a good mission statement if your life’s work is jumping double decker buses on a motorbike, but not so hot in the Quinn family’s rather more complex situation.

In real terms, given that the key decisions about the family will be made by courts which don’t care about Cavan protests, the protest was pointless. But it amounted to a territorial challenge to the current In Group, and the In Group wasn’t having any of it. So the end result is a double negative: More hostile coverage and the side-swiping of the priest whose view of friendship put him on a foldable chair onstage that day.