Coalition flirting may cause seismic change

Flying kites, like kissing damp babies and going to strangers’ funerals armed with a green biro, is part of our political culture. So, too, is the idea of clinging to, or achieving, power at any cost. Those habits came together this week when Taoiseach Enda Kenny refused to rule out an alliance between Fine Gael and Sinn Féin.

Ordinarily, a statement of the obvious like that could be dismissed as a wily politician ruling nothing hypothetical in or out. However, remarks from Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald, declaring that Sinn Féin might consider a coalition role as a junior partner, suggest some sort of Montague-and-Capulet matchmaking may be a possibility.

That feeling is strengthened by Gerry Adams’s declaration that Sinn Féin’s veto on entering coalition as a junior partner could be overturned.