Lust for power soon turns old enemies into political bedfellows

Kenny, in effect, was trying to hurt Fianna Fáil by helping Mary Lou McDonald when he criticised Garret FitzGerald for suggesting Fine Gael should transfer votes to Eoin Ryan. At the same time he was trying to have us believe that he would not deal with Sinn Féin. He can’t have it both ways

IN the last days of the campaign, Enda Kenny somehow managed to put both feet into his mouth by getting into a tangle over whether or not Fine Gael would some day share power with Sinn Féin and also over Garret FitzGerald’s suggestion that FG should help out Fianna Fáil’s Eoin Ryan in the European elections.

What FitzGerald was essentially saying was that Fine Gael voters should give their second preferences to Eoin Ryan.

Back when the issue of joining the Common Market was being hotly debated, FitzGerald and Eoin Ryan’s father often spoke in favour of the proposition from the same platform. That FitzGerald would call for Fine Gael voters to transfer to Fianna Fáil is quite natural because the two parties have most in common.

Eoin Ryan’s family probably had more reason that most to understand that. Eoin’s grandfather, Dr James Ryan — who served in all of the Fianna Fáil governments under de Valera — had been friendly with Michael Collins in Frongoch, but he sided with de Valera over the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Two of his sisters, Kate and Phyllis, married Sean T O’Kelly, who was also anti-Treaty, while a third sister, Min, married Richard Mulcahy, who eventually became leader of Fine Gael.

When the Ryans, O’Kellys and Mulcahys got together after the civil war for weddings, christenings or other family occasions, the women insisted there would be no politics discussed. They were all strongwilled women. Indeed, critics of Jim Ryan used to say he was the only woman in his family.

Growing up in Kerry in the 1950s the civil war was still a live issue. Some of the greatest atrocities had occurred in Kerry around 30 years earlier. It would have been as fresh in older people’s minds as the events of the 1970s would be today.

Nobody mentioned the civil war in school and my first introduction to it was taking a history course in Texas on Europe between the two world wars. I wrote a term paper on the cause of the Irish civil war. I thought it was over partition, but was staggered to learn there was no real difference between Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera over partition.

Collins challenged de Valera to say what kind of treaty he wanted and de Valera presented his alternative, which contained the partition clauses of the treaty verbatim. De Valera admitted the difference between the treaty and what he wanted was so small that the British would not fight over it. Collins said the British would fight but it was not worth fighting over, so they and their followers fought over it between themselves. In fairness to de Valera, once the civil war began he tried to stop the fighting. But his critics accused him of being responsible for it and for protracting the struggle.

After the civil war when he was arrested in Ennis on August 15, 1923, the Cumann na nGaedhael government ordered the attorney general to bring charges against him with least possible delay.

“We have arrested the man who called up anarchy and crime, and who did more damage than anyone could have conceived, or than was ever done by the British,” Justice Minister Kevin O’Higgins declared next day. “Through him, and at his instigation, a number of young blackguards had robbed banks, blown up bridges and wrecked railways, and that in the name of an Irish Republic.”

But the attorney general found that the only “real evidence” that de Valera had incited anyone during the civil war was an inflammatory letter he wrote to the secretary of Cumann na mBan.

In view of the enormity of the accusations, it would have been utterly ludicrous if he were charged only with inciting Cumann na mBan, of all organisations. So, instead, the government ordered he should be held indefinitely as a danger to “public safety”.

He was imprisoned for 11 months and then released. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were both founded after the civil war, and the only differences between them were the personalities, but of course they argued that they were acting in the national interest.

Both parties were derived from Sinn Féin and it is ironic now that either would suggest it would not coalesce with SF. If it ever comes to a situation in which Sinn Féin enjoys the balance of power, you will see how fast they abandon their phoney principles.

Remember how fast Fine Gael jumped into bed with Sean MacBride and Clann na Poblachta after they broke away from Sinn Féin. If Enda Kenny rejected a chance to get into government in such circumstances, he would be thrown out on his ear faster than you could say, “good God!”

Kenny, in effect, was trying to hurt Fianna Fáil by helping Mary Lou McDonald when he criticised Garret FitzGerald for suggesting Fine Gael should transfer votes to Eoin Ryan. At the same time he was trying to have us believe he would not deal with Sinn Féin. He can’t have it both ways.

Back in 1985 the Progressive Democrats were formed to keep Charlie Haughey from power. They went into the 1987 general election promising to go into government with Fine Gael, but they didn’t have the numbers.

Garret FitzGerald had the courage to recognise that it was time to put the national interest first. He announced on the day that Charlie Haughey was elected Taoiseach for the third time that Fine Gael would back the government if it took the unpopular decisions that were necessary to turn the economy around.

Alan Dukes was then elected to succeed FitzGerald and he dutifully implemented what became known as the Tallaght Strategy. Fianna Fáil took the hard decisions with Fine Gael backing. But then Haughey tried to claim all the credit by calling a general election in a vainglorious effort to win an overall majority.

THE electorate was not fooled. Fianna Fáil lost four seats. The only bigger losers were the PDs who lost eight of their 14 seats. Fine Gael, on the other hand, gained four seats.

Alan Dukes then offered to back Fianna Fáil again but this time on condition Haughey agreed to share half the seats in cabinet and rotate the office of Taoiseach with Fine Gael. This could have ended the posturing civil war politics, but the PDs came to Haughey’s rescue by jumping into bed with him.

Dick Spring led the Labour party to its greatest ever general election showing in 1992. He had been railing against the corruption in Fianna Fáil, but Labour promptly jumped into bed with Albert Reynolds and Fianna Fáil, because the only alternative was with both Fine Gael and the PDs.

Those two savaged Dick Spring for talking to the Democratic Left (DL), another Sinn Féin breakaway, but three years later, after DL gained an extra seat, Fine Gael formed the rainbow coalition with Labour and DL. It has since been absorbed by the Labour party and has essentially taken control of it, while Fine Gael is clamouring to get back into bed with Labour. It’s all a game for power. The Fine Gael pretence that it will not deal with a constitutional party is as phoney as the current Fianna Fáil pretence of providing leadership.