Fergus Finlay: It’s hard to imagine anything more meaningless than the monarchy

Forget 'history in the making', the royal family has become a badly produced soap opera

King Charles III looks bemused as the royal procession arrives at Westminster Abbey for the coronation ceremony. Picture: Toby Melville/PA

So I watched as much of the coronation as I could handle. You do that, don’t you, if you’ve any kind of interest in history, like the inauguration of a president or the arrival of a new pope. 

But not for the first time in my life, and without wanting to be condescending, I felt proud to have been born and raised in a republic.

The harder I watched, the less “history in the making” I could see. The stuff in Westminster Abbey was incredibly dreary, and the crowds on the streets were wet and miserable.

Doing their best to be good and loyal citizens, I suppose, but they’ll all have needed warm baths by the time they got home. The whole thing looked like a Disney movie from years ago, only with less taste.

There really is something incredibly incongruous about watching an older man (he’s even older than me!) carrying jewellery worth millions of pounds down the aisle of a church, and then being pulled in a gold carriage past tens of thousands of people suffering through a deep recession.

Crowds braved the elements on the day of the coronation. Picture: Niall Carson/PA Wire

One aerial shot seemed to show the carriage being driven over sand-filled potholes in the streets near Buckingham Palace.

Before I go any further, I have to get off my chest the fact that I am at a complete loss to understand what our elected heads of government and state were doing there.

I presume they decided it would be impolite to turn down the invitation — or maybe they wanted the day out, God help them.

But we are a republic. There are two fundamental differences between our head of state and any monarch.

First, our head of state is elected by the people and only the people. 

No one is born to the job in a republic. They go through a campaign, often a very rigorous and demanding campaign, to be chosen — or rejected — by the people.

Second, no one owes any allegiance to the head of state of a republic.

No one in a republic is invited to stand up in front of the television (if they’re lucky enough not to be packed into the abbey) and volunteer to say “I swear that I will pay true allegiance to Your Majesty, and to your heirs and successors according to law. So help me God”.

Instead, the head of state in a republic (this one anyway) takes a solemn oath to “dedicate [his or her or their] abilities to the service and welfare of the people of Ireland”. 

Our head of state is commonly seen as the first citizen of Ireland, but always a citizen, never a monarch.

Don’t get me wrong. I accept that the decision about whether or not both heads of government and state should attend the coronation was a matter of judgement, not of principle. I just think it was a wrong judgement.

The pomp and ceremony around the crowning of a monarch is really none of our business.

Yes, Britain is our nearest neighbour, and (despite what we politely call our “shared history”) it is a friend of Ireland. We share common interests and bonds — nearly every one of us has family there.

I’m going there myself next week on a visit — I’m really looking forward to it — and hope to share the temper of the place with you when I come back. 

But I’m really glad I don’t ever have to bend the knee to an unelected king.

It’s actually hard to understand the whole thing. I’ve always thought Charles was a decent enough sort of chap, probably a victim of his upbringing. 

An unhappy childhood, a life of rules and regulations, he lives in a gilded cage, like one of the most privileged prisoners in the world.

The Prince of Wales kisses his father King Charles III during his coronation ceremony in Westminster Abbey, London. 

He’s made a mess of some of the important things in his life, as far as one can tell, and his great achievement seems to have been to have lived long enough to succeed his mother.

He looked a bit sheepish throughout the entire ceremony in the abbey, like someone wondering what the hell was really going on.

I found myself wondering if maybe it has occurred to him that if the monarchy didn’t exist, no one in their right mind would invent it now. And if he had to campaign to be elected to the job, he wouldn’t have a hope.

Here was an amazingly rich man, who as far as one can tell has never earned a penny of it himself, the powerless ruler of an increasingly diminished and terribly governed country, surrounded by extraordinary amounts of garish and frequently hideous bling — the largest cut diamond in the world is something to be boastful about, apparently.

The Guardian newspaper has estimated Charles’ personal wealth at £1.8bn — that’s well over €2bn to you and me.

A lot of that is in secret shareholdings, most of it is free of tax, and it is in addition to the £86m a year he receives (from his loyal taxpayers) for his “royal duties”.

No matter how much you love the monarchy, that’s indefensible at any level.

We all know that Charles believes in doing his duty, that he cares passionately about the environment, that he wants to serve rather than be served.

Not a lot of that was evident in the endless forelock-tugging on display on Saturday, or among the hundreds of the great and the good in their silly robes and uniforms, looking endlessly pleased with themselves.

I’m a big fan of Rory Stewart (the last decent Tory) who does a regular podcast with Alastair Campbell, but my goodness didn’t he look silly in his “privy councillor uniform” on his way to the ball.

Add in the fact that Charles is now the head of an entirely dysfunctional family. It was that way when his mother was in charge, although somehow she seemed to have the knack of rising above it.

But from the moment Charles married Diana, and probably even further back, the family has attracted one scandal after another.

Now, it seems there are children who can’t bear to be in the same room as each other, a brother afraid to leave the jurisdiction for fear of arrest, and endless accusations of racism and bullying.

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And the family is, of course, utterly powerless in all the ways that matter. They had nothing to say about Brexit. They had nothing to say about the behaviour of Boris, the appalling mismanagement of Liz Truss, or the increasing and frightening racism at the heart of a soulless British government.

While the country they rule is in decline, they drive around in expensive cars, live in lavish houses, and try to look sympathetic. While pocketing lots and lots of money.

The royal family, that symbol of British endurance, stability, and greatness, has become a badly produced soap opera, its scripts written by tabloid newspapers, its ensemble cast completely at odds with each other, its audience increasingly willing to switch channels.

It might have stood for something once. Its country might have needed it once. But now, it’s hard to imagine anything more hollow or meaningless.