Forming a government - Two leaders must make a deal or quit

AS the explosive events that led to the 1970 arms trial begin to fade from living memory — most of the central players are dead, and many of today’s Dáil deputies had not been born then — it may be that a lesson offered by that seditious challenge to constitutional politics is relevant.

As well as uncovering dishonesty at every level of government, our Guy Fawkes moment showed that as an organisation evolves it may have to leave behind individuals and principles that once seemed its very heartbeat. The future and the past may not have the same priorities or obligations. The choice becomes simple — languish in one or embrace the other.

That trial was followed by an infamous Fianna Fáil 1971 ard fheis when the “bully boys” on the party’s republican wing tried exert decisive influence. They provoked an uncompromising rebuff from then Minister for External Affairs and later president Paddy Hillery: “If you want a fight you can have it ... You can have Boland but you can’t have Fianna Fáil.” A fork in the road had been reached, and the Republican Party shed a skin, and Kevin Boland, to live in a new, changing world. Boland went on to establish Aontacht Éireann but was not re-elected to the Dáil. Oblivion and irrelevance were the rewards for his extremism.